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PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [JunO 9, 





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the very general belief that it was richly auriferous. Two large 

 parties of miners did indeed forcibly enter the ground, but found so 

 little as to discourage their return at the risk of violating the law. 

 By the kindness of His Grace 

 the Duke of Portland I was 

 enabled to make a careful ex- 

 amination of all the rocks in 

 the Langwell and Berriedale 

 valleys, traversing the moun- 

 tains, and examining every 

 rocky stream ; and so far as 

 such search is conclusive, apart 

 from washing for gold, I should 

 be inclined to think that this 

 district is less likely to prove 

 auriferous than that on the Su- 

 therland side of the ridge be- 

 tween Cnock-nan-Eirinneach 

 and Suidhe-'n-fhir-bhig, the 

 line of the county march. 



This opinion is of course 

 solely founded upon the appa- 

 rent absence of those rocks 

 which seem to be associated 

 with the richest deposits in the 

 district of Eal-Donnan. 



5. The source of the gold, 

 however, is still undiscovered, 

 since nowhere has it yet been 

 found in rock in situ. Several 

 specimens of water-rolled stone, 

 rich in gold, have been found 

 in Suisgill and Kil-Donnan 

 burns : these, with the speci- 

 men already referred to, are 

 now exhibited; and it will be 

 seen that in every instance the 

 components of the stone are 

 felspar and quartz, with one 

 exception, in which the rock is 

 quartz only, but not such a 

 large fragment as may not have 

 belonged to the quartzo-fels- 

 pathic rock c. Arguing from 

 the comparative poverty of the 

 drift where this rock or its de- 

 tritus is scarce, and connecting its prevalence in Suisgill and Kil- 

 Donnan with the rich alluvium there, we may venture, I think, to 

 infer from these facts and those rock-specimens that the granitiform 

 rock c may yet be found to be the matrix of the gold. 



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