112 DESCRIPTIONS OF MINERALS. 
reduce the material to loose earth and prepare it for further 
washing by the same water in sluices arranged for the pur- 
pose. 
The minerals most common in gold regions are platinum, 
iridosmine, magnetite, pyrite, galenite, ilmenite, chalco- 
pyrite, blende, tetradymite, zircon, rutile, barite ; also in 
some cases wolfram, scheelite, brookite, monazite and dia- 
mond. Platinum and iridosmine accompany the gold of 
the Urals, Brazil and California; and diamonds are found 
in the gold region of Brazil, and occasionally in the Urals 
and United States. 
Gold is widely distributed over the globe. In AMERICA, 
it occurs in Brazil (where formerly a greater part of that 
used was obtained) along the chain of mountains which 
runs nearly parallel with the coast, especially near Villa 
Rica, and in the province of Minas Geraes ; in New Granada, 
at Antioquia, Choco and Giron; in Chili; sparingly im Peru 
and Mexico; in Arizona; in the Coast Range, and, much 
more abundantly, in the Sierra Nevada, California; in 
' Oregon, British Columbia and Alaska; in New Mexico, 
Colorado, and Wyoming, and other parts of the hocky 
Mountain region; in the Appalachians from Virginia to 
Georgia, a region that formerly produced annually nearly a 
million of dollars; very sparingly in Vermont, New Hamp- 
shire, and other New England States; in Nova Scotia ; in 
Beauce County, Canada; also, north of Lake Superior ; 
and in the gravel of Illinois and Indiana. 
In Evropg, it occurs sparingly in Cornwall and Devon, 
England ; North Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, formerly in 
the County of Wicklow, where a nugget of 22 ounces was 
found ; and in France, very sparingly in the Department of 
Iscre ;.in the sands of the Rhine, the Reuss, and the Aar ; 
in Tyrol and Salzburg ; on the southern slope of the Pen- 
nine Alps, from the Simplon and Monte Rosa to the Valley « 
of Aosta, Northern Piedmont, where nearly 6,000 ounces 
were obtained in 1867; more abundantly in Hungary, at 
Konigsberg, Schemnitz and Felsobanya, and in Transyl- 
vania, at Kapnik, Véréspatak and Offenbanya ; in Spain, 
formerly worked in Asturias ; in Sweden, at Edelfors. 
In the Urals are valuable mines at Beresof, and other 
places on the eastern or Asiatic flank of this range, and the 
comparatively level portions of Siberia; also in the Altai 
Mountains. Also in the Cailas Mountains in Little Thibet ; 
