24 HEYL— PLATINUM IN NORTH CAROLINA. [February 7, 



Dr. Colby then began a most discouraging nine-year campaign 

 of promotion, bringing the matter to the attention of practically 

 every large platinum-working concern in this country, and last of 

 all to the concern with which I am connected. 



It was the same story everywhere. His tale was listened to with 

 more or less interest, the samples were turned over to the company's 

 chemist, who invariably reported " no platinum." Then a letter, not 

 always too polite, closed the negotiations in that direction. 



Dr. Colby, having several times been able to correct professional 

 assayers to whom the examination of the rock had been intrusted 

 as to the proper handling of a silver bead containing platinum, be- 

 came convinced that the trouble lay with the chemists ; that the plati- 

 num existed in the rock in some new form, which required a special 

 method of analysis to detect it. 



In the course of the campaign the matter was brought to the 

 attention of the United States Geological Survey, and Dr. Day and 

 Mr. Sterrett visited the ground. A car load of rock was taken out 

 and tested on one of the concentrating tables which had proved very 

 successful on the black sands of the Pacific coast. The examina- 

 tion of the concentrates showed no platinum. Dr. Colby had some 

 experiments made wath dry concentrators, which he says gave fairly 

 good results. No figures on these results were furnished us. 



The matter came to our attention early in the year 191 1. The 

 first thing to be done in the matter was to write to the Geological 

 Survey. 



The reply of the Survey stated that nothing had been published 

 on the subject; that the rocks in the vicinity were hornblende schist 

 and sericite quartz schist, which might represent metamorphosed 

 phases of volcanic rock such as andesite and rhyolite ; that it was 

 claimed that the sulphides in the hornblende schist carried platinum 

 in some form difficult to extract ; and that the Survey had not deter- 

 mined this point. 



With this curious history of the situation laid full}- before us we 

 were inclined to place considerable confidence in Dr. Colby's hypoth- 

 esis of a new form of occurrence of platinum. Bearing in mind that 

 the properties of compounds in the native state are often very dif- 



