G. F. Becker—Solutions of Cinnabar, Gold, etc. 209 
is found and in most it constitutes a very small proportion of 
the entire ore.* Accompanying this precipitation is the forma- 
tion of hyposulphite, which actually occurs in the waters of 
Steamboat Springs. °Dilution of solutions of quicksilver with 
extraneous spring waters thus explains the occurrence of meta- 
cinnabarite, found in at least four of the mines of California, and 
in New Zealand, and of native quicksilver. Native quicksilver 
however occurs in many mines in which no metacinnabarite has 
ever been seen. This does not preclude the supposition that 
the metal has been isolated by dilution; for black sulphides in 
the presence of solutions of mercury might readily be con- 
verted into the allotropic modification, and I know of no reason 
for denying that much of the cinnabar of the ore deposits may 
have been deposited in the amorphous state. Cinnabar and 
metacinnabarite are sometimes found mixed, as if the conversion 
to the red form were incomplete; and there is other evidence 
from observation that mercuric sulphide is shghtly soluble in 
the waters of some of the cold mines. 
While dilution will produce metallic mercury and a causa 
vera of its existence is thus detected, there may be other ways 
besides this in which it is produced in nature. Thus sulphy- 
dric acid precipitates a mixture of quicksilver and mercuric sul- 
phide from mercurous salts. Whether soluble mercurous salts 
can occur in nature, excepting near the earth’s surface, is 
another question. But even light is well known to decompose 
this feeble sulphide, and it is not impossible that the decompo- 
sition of organic matter, which is associuted in most cases 
with cinnabar deposits, and seems to be specially abundant 
in the mines in which metallic mercury most prevails, may 
yield ammonium sulphide and metallic mercury. 
Conclusions.—The conditions of the solution and precipita- 
tion of ores traced in this paper appear beyond doubt those 
mainly instrumental in forming the deposits of Steamboat 
Springs and Sulphur Bank. Most of the other quicksilver 
mines in California show ores and gangue minerals of similar 
composition to these, and many of them are accompanied more 
or less closely by warm springs containing much the same salts 
in solution. Some of the gold veins also appear to bear so 
considerable a resemblance in many particulars to these depos- 
its as to lead to the belief that they too were formed by precipi- 
tation from solutions of soluble double sulphides. 
That pyrite, gold and other ores are sometimes produced in 
nature by other methods is absolutely’ certain; for some 
auriferous pyrite is known to have resulted from the reduction 
*Tt is a very curious fact that from ancient times to the beginning of the last 
century virgin quicksilver was supposed to possess qualities superior to that of 
the metal reduced from cinnabar. Briickmann, Magn. dei in loc. subt. 
H 
