W. SKEY.—On the Nuclear Action of Gold. 373 
undissolved. Accidentally some extraneous substance, supposed to have been 
a piece of cork, had fallen into the solution, decomposing it and causing the 
gold to precipitate, which deposited in the metallic state, as in the electro- 
plating process, around the small piece of undissolved gold, increasing it in 
size to two or three times its original dimensions.” 
The results alleged to have been obtained by Mr. Daintree appearing to 
have, and indeed being recognized as having, a very important bearing upon 
the popular question as to how our gold nuggets have been formed I have 
endeavoured to obtain further details, but in this I have been unsuccessful. 
Mr. Brough Smyth, indeed, in his work upon the Gold Fields and Mineral 
Districts of Victoria, refers to what appears to be the same experiment, but 
nothing further is there stated except that the size of the gold fragment 
started with is increased from a “speck” to a “piece.” I have therefore 
tried to reproduce the results themselves, and having been unsuccessful I will 
describe minutely the several modes I adopted. 
lst. -1315 grammes of gold, hammered thin and bent to a curved disc of 
such a size as to expose about half a square inch of superficies, was placed in a 
glass vessel containing two ounces of a solution of auric-chloride of a strength 
equal to half a grain of gold per ounce. For reducing agents small pieces of 
cork and wood were sunk by glass attachments to the bottom of the vessel in 
close proximity to the disc of gold. 
The vessel was then closed, put in a darkened place, and suffered to 
remain at rest until all the gold present in solution had been reduced, a 
process occupying in this case a period of time equal to rather more than two 
months. 
The gold disc was then carefully examined and weighed. It had a small 
quantity of very finely granular gold loosely adherent to it, and apparently 
equally disposed over its surface. 
With the whole of this w gold attached the disc only increased in 
weight ‘0005 of a gramme, or z; a of its weight (a rate of increase that would 
require about forty-four years k rabie the size of the disc), consequently only 
about the 5 part of the total amount of gold present in solution had deposited 
upon the disc, the remainder having deposited away from it, and this was _ 
seen to have indiscriminately attached itself to every surface which had 
contact with the auriferous solution, whether the bottom or sides of the vessel, 
the glass attachments, or even the surface of the liquid having contact ui 
with the atmosphere. 
In reference to the minute quantity deposited upon the gold dise it was 
found by numerical calculation that the proportion was certainly not more, 
relatively to the surface of the disc, than that which the remainder of the 
gold bore to the extent of the surfaces upon which it had affixed itself. 
