MINING. 321 



were out on a drunken frolic, started a large boulder down a 

 steep hill. On its way down, it struck a brown rock and 

 broke a portion of it off exposing a vein of white quartz 

 which proved to be auriferous, induced the disappointed min- 

 ers to remain some months longer in the State, and paid them 

 well for remaining. Science and experience do not appear to 

 give much assistance in prospecting for quartz lodes. Chemists, 

 geologists, mineralogists, and old miners, have not done better 

 than ignorant men and new-comers. Most of the best veins 

 have been discovered by poor and ignorant men. Not one 

 has been found by a man of high education as a miner or 

 geologist. No doubt, geological knowledge is valuable to a 

 miner, and it should assist him in prospecting ; but it has never 

 yet enabled anybody to find a valuable claim. 



It is useless to prospect for auriferous quartz in a country 

 where no placer gold has been found. If the metal exists in 

 the rock, some of it will also be found in the alluvium, and it 

 can be discovered there more readily than in the vein. After 

 the placers have been found, then search should be made for 

 the quartz. The following rules are serviceable : 



1 . If a ravine is rich in gold to a certain point and barren 

 above, look for a quartz vein in the hill-sides just above the 

 place where the richness ceases. 



2. A line of pieces of quartz rock observed in a hill-side, 

 probably indicates the course of a quartz vein. 



3. If a ravine crosses a quartz vein, fragments of the rock 

 will be found in its bed below. 



4. A large quartz vein will often show its presence in the 

 topography of the country, by forming hills in those spots 

 where the rock happens to be very hard. 



5. Quartz can be found and the veins traced with com- 

 paratively little labor in the steep banks of canons, where the 

 rock is base or is covered with but little soil. 



6. If a quartz vein contains gold, some of the metal may 

 be perceptible to the naked eye. 



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