Rig RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
“ croppings veins,” because their position is shown Ly the out- 
croppings. Experience has not ascertained whether large or 
small veins are more likely to contain gold. It is found in 
both. The porous quartz, or that containing many cavities, is 
more frequently found auriferous and richly auriferous, than 
the very compact quartz. The best gold-bearing veins are 
usually yellowish or brownish in tinge, near the surface at 
least ; but very rich specimens are found in white and bluish- 
white rock. Most quartz veins in California contain a little 
gold ; the metal seems to have been distributed most lavishly, 
but unfortunately in nine-tenths of the veins, the proportion 
of metal is too small to pay. Most of the large veins are sup- 
posed to run for miles upon miles, though they can rarely be 
traced clearly on the surface for more than a furlong. The 
auriferous veins vary much in richness. No vein is wrought 
for more than a few hundred feet. Beyond that, it is either 
too poor to pay, or the vein is hidden. Some persons have 
supposed that there is one great gold-bearing quartz vein run- 
ning along the side of the Sierra Nevada, from Mariposa to 
Plumas county, and that many of the richest claims are really 
in this one vein; but this is a supposition which cannot be 
proved now. Sometimes a vein seems to spread out and di- 
vide into a number of smaller veins, all of which afterward 
unite again. These points of junction, and the narrower places 
in the vein, are usually richer than other parts of it. When 
two veins cross each other, one may be auriferous on one side 
of the intersection and not on the other; but in this case the 
other vein will be auriferous on both sides. It is as though 
they were streams, one rich, the other barren, and that after 
meeting, the wealth of the one was divided between them. 
It is a general rule that metalliferous veins running parallel 
«with the strata of the bed-rock or country are not extensive. 
In fact they are rather deposits than veins, and though often 
extremely rich are soon exhausted, while the lodes which run 
across the stratification run far and deep, and have a regular 
and straight course and dip. Lodes lying between two different 
