A GOLD MINE. 71 



of the earth. Without iron and steel mankind 

 does not advance above barbarism. To conquer 

 the material world he must have tools and 

 machinery. Without metals mankind could 

 neither make a conquest of material nature nor 

 extricate himself from the lower brute stratum 

 of life, and without the metals brought together 

 in veins it would be impossible to obtain them. 

 Thus, " On small hinges turn great doors." All 

 veins mark the places of rents or cracks in the 

 rocks ; no matter whether they are great fissure 

 veins many miles in length, and from ten to two 

 or three hundred feet in width in places, or 

 whether they are only a few feet in length and 

 thinner than a knife blade, the origin is the 

 same ; they are healed rents. 



For the most part, over all the earth this 

 mending or healing the wound is done with 

 silica or quartz. This is a very common mineral, 

 entering largely into the composition of almost 

 all kinds of rocks. It is one of nature's main 

 materials used in the construction of this earth. 

 When analyzed by a chemist it is found to be 

 made of two elements, namely, oxygen, on which 

 we depend for the breath of life, and silicon, a 

 metal never found outside of the clutches of this 

 terrible oxygen. They are interlocked in an 

 embrace that was formed when the earth was 



