SOURCE AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE GOLD 3907 
auriferous detritus than in the solid vein. We say apparently, because it is 
not so easy to give satisfactory proof for this generally accepted article of 
belief. It does appear, however, as if there was some truth in the idea that 
the finding of large pieces of gold in the gravel is not justified by what we 
see of the occurrence of the metal in the quartz. It is certain, at all events, 
that the form of the ordinary nugget is something different from that which 
is offered by the gold as originally deposited. And before proceeding further 
in this discussion, a few words may be offered in regard to the shape and 
character of the metal, when in its natural condition, as associated with the 
quartz or with any other mineral or rock. The writer has had many oppor- 
tunities to study the shape and appearance of the native gold enclosed in the 
quartz. The metal presents in such cases a great variety of forms, but it 
never occurs, so far as the writer is aware, in rounded, smooth pieces, such 
as used to be found not unfrequently in the placer mines along the course of 
the present streams. 
The larger part of the gold contained in the quartz exists in the form of 
particles invisible to the naked eye; and there are many mines, which are 
producing largely and paying handsomely, where free gold can hardly ever 
be seen at all in the rock going to the stamps. Indeed, there is a general 
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belief among the miners that “ specimen mines ’’ — or those where the free 
gold is segregated from the quartz so as to form handsome specimens — are 
not likely to be persistent. 
Where the gold is visible to the eye in the quartz, the predominating form 
which it exhibits is that which is best expressed by the term “scaly,” —a 
word used by the placer and hydraulic miners in describing the small, 
rounded, flattened pieces with which they so frequently meet. When the 
gold is collected into continuous thread-like forms, these are usually found 
on examination to be made up of aggregations of very irregularly grouped 
filmy or scale-like particles. The metallic portion in such cases, if freed from 
the quartz without alteration of its form, would present itself in rough and 
extremely irregular shapes. A very large proportion of the gold, if visible 
to the naked eye at all, has this appearance. Occasionally, however, this 
metal occurs in thin plates or leaves, with rather smooth surfaces. Such 
forms appear, however, to be almost, if not quite, exclusively limited in their 
occurrence to veins in which the quartz is in combs, or parallel layers having 
their opposite faces lined with crystals; it is between these crystalline 
‘plates that the leaf-gold usually occurs. 
