GEOLOGY. 55 
half an inch long. Large wire-gold is in wirelike pieces, about 
a sixteenth of an inch thick, and from a quarter of an inch to 
an inch long. Miscellaneous coarse gold is in pieces of very 
irregular shape and size. 
Fine gold is often found without any admixture of coarse; 
«coarse is rarely found without some admixture of fine. 
The different varieties of gold are often found separate from 
each other. One gully will have scale-gold, another fine wire- 
gold, another moccasin-gold, another pumpkin-seed gold, and 
soon. These different varieties of gold are frequently found 
very near to each other: a cucumber-seed gully will not be 
more than a hundred yards from a pea gully. There is a small 
hill in El Dorado county; all the gold on one side is fine, all 
on the other coarse. The gold as it originally comes from the 
quartz is rough, but by friction among the gravel and sand it 
becomes smooth. Where all the pieces of gold are rough, it 
has not moved far from its maternal lode; where all the par- 
ticles are small and smooth, the presumption is that it has 
moved a considerable distance. The larger the stream, the 
finer and smoother its gold, as a general rule. 
Most of the gold now obtained is miscellaneous coarse; the 
little gullies which yielded the delicate varieties are now nearly 
all exhausted. 
Most of the placer-gold is coarse, in pieces worth half a dol- 
lar or more. Pieces worth five dollars are very common, and 
numberless nuggets worth one hundred dollars or more have 
been found in California. The largest nugget of gold on ree- 
ord was found at Ballaarat, Australia, on the 9th of June, 
1858; it weighed two hundred and twenty-four pounds Troy, 
of nearly pure gold, and was called “The Welcome Nugget.” 
The next, weighing one hundred and ninety-five pounds Troy, 
was found in Calaveras county, California, in November, 1854, 
The third, called “The Blanche Barkly Nugget,” weighed one 
hundred and forty-five pounds Troy, and was also found in 
Australia. Smaller lumps are too numerous to mention. All 
placer-gold is called “dust,” but the particles of the dust are 
