34 The Philosopher's Stone. [January, 
the matrix that formerly held it. All alluvial gold has been 
liberated from the mountain veins by the crumbling and disin- 
tegration of the tops of the elevations, and where erosion has 
taken place, the gold, which is indestructible in nature, has 
been set free from the original environment in the vein which 
held it, and by reason of its greater gravity has descended -be- 
neath and through the soil upon the mountain-side, along the 
inclining face of the rocky slope, until it has reached the lower 
level of the river or gulch bottom. No salts of gold being found 
in nature, the surface of the metal is always bright and clean, 
and, being so soft, ductile, and heavy, its particles adhere by con- 
tact to form nuggets. Sometimes an interposing shelf or ledge 
upon the hill-side will arrest and detain the descending particles 
until aggregations of a larger size are formed. Such places are 
ealled pockets. The breaking away of such a shelf, and the sub- 
sequent descent of the gold thus aggregated, by means of gravity, 
to the lower level of the river bed, accounts for the occasional 
appearance of the large masses of gold found in river bottoms. 
The particles of metal occurring in the lower portion of the slope 
will uniformly be coarser than those obtained higher up, from the 
effects of aggregation in their passage ; and they also begin to 
show the worn appearance of alluvial gold, from having been car- 
ried along over the rough surface of the rocky hill-side in their 
descent towards the river bed. 
Supposing some ancient seeker after the precious metal to 
have exhausted the supply of a locality by washing the gravels 
and sands of a river bottom, in following up the hill-side the 
traces of the descending gold, he would in removing the soil 
eventually reach a place where all signs of gold would have dis- 
appeared. Atthis point, as he exposed the surface of the mount- 
ain-side, he would find a vein of quartz; and this at the top 
would be much decomposed, having a honey-combed or cellular 
appearance. Adhering to the quartz, and in some of its cells, he 
would find particles of gold, and as he made an opening into the 
vein he would expose to view what we term sulphides of iron and 
copper, as well as cells containing oxides of these metals, and 
also gold. When he came to deepen the opening upon the vein, 
all signs of gold would disappear, and he would find nothing but 
the quartz and accompanying sulphides. He would hardly sup- 
pose the latter to be gold, but, as he found the two to be neigh- 
bors, he might infer that the one contained the other, and to 
settle the question he would call into requisition the services of 
