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_ formed crystal. This may partly result from the custom among 
the miners of reserving any peculiar or remarkable specimens of 
_ of the rive 
78 W.P. Blake on the Gold Region of California and Oregon. 
which amounted to several dollars. Within a few weeks after 
this discovery, the owners of the claim were taking out 27 
ounces a week, sometimes finding four ounces ina pan. The last 
accounts that I have received state, that sixty-five thousand dol- 
lars worth of gold had been obtained—all from an ordinary 
mining shaft fifty feet deep, and without the aid of machinery. 
CRYSTALLINE GOLD.—Good crystallizations of gold are compar- 
atively rare in California. A hundred pounds of coarse placer 
=] 
small size for breast-pins or for preservation as curiosities. 
Plare ., Forest Hill.—Interesting octahedral crystals have 
been found in the claims of the Messrs. Deidesheimer at this place. 
These crystals occur with placer gold 2500 feet above the level 
+ but they are not much worn b 
Quartz crystals ‘are found mingled with the auriferous earth witk 
only their sharp edges and angles removed by attrition, which 
shows that the drift is\comparatively local and indicates the pres- 
ence of a parent vein in ‘the Vicinity. Most of the crystals have 
gold crystals, and some of them are‘verymuch dist 
are flattened parallel to a face so as to beeot 
plates. 
ieee 
an inch across the 
for a short distance above and below the basal ridges, 
culiarity of a series of similar parallel planes, lying like plates 
one within the other, is presented. 
The crystal is elongated in the direction of a line parallel with 
two basal edges and thus becomes a rectangular octahedron. 
The length of the longer base is one inch, and the shorter 
seven-eighths of aninch. I believe this to be the largest crystal 
4 reported ; it may be called a skeleton crystal on a grand 
scale 
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The filamentous and arborescent masses are frequently united to 
plates (as broad as the hand) which are covered with lines of | 
crystallization and are brilliant with numberless faces of partly 
ormed crystals. They are also combined with good crystals 
which are generally octahedral and have perfect faces. 
