January 19, 1894.] 
force acting in conjunction with this lateral pressure, 
would, as shown by Daubreé, cause fractures to occur 
on the sides of the folds, in the direction of the axis of 
elevation, or nearly so. These combined forces would, 
also, according to Daubreé and Emmons, cause the 
fractures to occur in more or less parallel groups, and 
would account for the minor fractures or sheeting struc- 
ture so characteristic of this district. Most of the 
metalliferous fissures in the district are thus found on 
the sides of the anticlinal ridges, more or less parallel 
to their strike, and cutting the bedding vertically or at 
a much greater angle than the dip of the beds. When 
such fissures cut belts of pyritous felstone, it seems to 
be the invariable rule, that some portions, at least, of 
their course will be found rich in gold. 
Waters containing carbonic acid and other solvents 
acting on the pyrites and orthoclase would decompose 
them and carry the iron, gold and silica in solution 
through the fissures. The iron and silica were precipi- 
tated as limonite and vein quartz, but the gold, for some 
reason, was not evenly deposited with the other min- 
erals, but was segregated into ‘‘shoots” or ‘‘courses”’ 
through the veins, the portions of the veins lying be- 
tween these ‘‘ore shoots” being ‘‘low grade” or compar- 
atively barren. It is possible that these ‘‘ore shoots’’ 
owe their richness to their position in the old channels 
through which surface waters, containing organic mat- 
ter, or other precipitants, flowed with greatest free 
dom. 
The brown and yellow felstones, commonly called 
“porphyry” in the camp, are, as before stated, the 
pyritous felstones leached of their auriferous pyrites, in 
the manner described, and colored as they are by iron 
oxides. Much of the gold in the veins may have been 
derived by a more direct process from the micas, and 
did not undergo the intermediate stage of deposition 
-with pyrites in zones of impregnation. 
No sign of glacial action is apparent in the district, 
and no large streams are found in the close vicinity of 
the mines. The valleys or gulches are synclinal troughs 
rather than valleys of erosion. The products of surface 
_ or atmospheric erosion, since the formation of the mineral 
veins, remain for the most part im situ—the lack of 
transporting agencies, such as glaciers or flooded 
streams, accounts for the thickness of the ‘‘wash’ and 
the comparative absence of alluvial goldin the streams 
draining the district. Placers occur as often on the 
tops of the hills as in the valleys. Some of the decom- 
posed material from the very summits of the hills has 
proved so rich in gold as to well pay for transporting in 
wagons to the stamp mills. 
If water for hydralicing was available most of the 
“wash” would yield rich returns. 
No attempt has been made inthis paper to describe 
the many really great mines of the district. The writer 
has simply endeavored to show the connection or analo- 
gy between the alteration of granitic rocks and the oc- 
currence of the mineral in veins. If the cause of the 
concentration of mineral matter into veins is ‘‘lateral 
secretion,” it is evident that the greater the chemical 
and molecular alteration the country rock has under- 
gone, the greater the richness of the veins will be. If 
this hypothesis is the true explanation for the origin of 
the gold, the magnitude of the country rock alteration 
will easily account for the great richness of the mines so 
far discovered as well as ihsure their permanence and 
future value. 
In conclusion the writer desires to say that the area 
under discussion in these notes includes only the min- 
eral belt in which the present pay mines are located. It 
embraces about fifteen square miles, and does not in- 
SCIENCE. 
35 
clude the mountains to the north and west, such as Rhy- 
lorite Peak and Mt. Pisgah, which, judging from their 
appearance at a distance, and the testimony of others, 
are probably of eruptive origin. 
THE SYNTHETICAL POWERS OF MICRO- 
ORGANISMS—I. 
BY 0. LOEW, UNIVERSITY OF TOKIO, JAPAN. 
Amone all living organisms the micro organisms, 
micrococci as well as bacteria, bacilli and spirilli, are 
especially remarkable by their intensity of chemical ac- 
tivity. Oxydations and decompositions, reductions and 
synthetical processes are executed on an extensive 
scale. Numerous organic combinations are easily split 
up, and under atomic migrations substances of a more 
solid structure are formed, the products of fermentative 
actions. And amid this destructive activity, while the 
fight against easily changeable compounds is raging, there 
is built up in the interior of the cells the most labile of all 
combinations, the active albumen, being organized to 
living protoplasm. And thisis done, under favorable 
conditions, with such rapidity that one cell can yield by 
growth and continual fission in twenty-four hours more 
than one trillion of new cells! What an energetic man- 
ufacture of living protoplasm, of living cells! 
If we consider the destructive and synthetical opera- 
tions, we must arrive at the conclusion that the former 
are necessary for carrying on the latter; the former 
yield not only the forces necessary for the synthetical 
work, but also the suitable atomic groups. It is cer- 
tainly a highly interesting question of physiological 
chemistry to study the relations of the two different di- 
rections, and to elucidate which the groups are that 
serve for the synthetical work. In order to see our way 
clear we must at first consider the chemical structure of 
the combinations that can serve as nutrients, we must 
investigate the causes that bring about the transforma- 
tion of potential into actual energy, and we must recog- 
nize, above all, that the proteids of the living proto- 
plasm are chemically distinct, are different from those 
of the dead; we must acknowledge that when the labile 
character of the former changes by atomic migration to 
a stable one the death of the cells has come. 
Nutritive and poisonous qualities are relative concep- 
tions, poisons may become nutrients for bacteria when 
highly diluted, as phenol or acetic ether, and nutrients 
may become unfit for nutrition if the concentration 
teaches certain limits. Small chemical changes may 
convert a nutritive substance into a poison, and again 
the poison into an indifferent substance; thus the 
methan is indifferent, the methylic alcohol a nutrient, 
the methylic aldehyd a poison and the combination of 
the latter with bisulfite of sodium again indifferent, and 
even for a certain kind of bacterium a nutrient. 
CH, OH— 
CH, CH, OH CH, O SO, Na 
AS > ==" = : 
Methan Methy!1 alcohol Methylic aldehyde Methy1 sulfonate 
i __ of sodium. 
Also the quantity of the produced fungoid matter de- 
pends a great deal upon the chemical constitution of the 
nutrient. ThusI have observed with cultures of mould 
fungi that tannin or tartaric acid yields only 10/12 per 
cent of their weight, acetic or succinic acids, however, 
14/20 per cent, when nitrogen is present in form of am- 
monia salts. The more oxygen atoms are contained in 
a compound the less, naturally, will be the relative pro- 
duction of fungoid substance, but it makes a difference 
as to whether the oxygen atoms are present in form of 
carboxyl groups or in form of ‘‘alcoholic”’ hydroxyl 
groups. The easier a substance is decomposed, the 
more readily it will be used, and the quicker the devel- 
opment of cells will take place. 
