THE ORIGIN OF MOSS GOLD. 297 
1807, there is an account of Hatchett’s experiments upon them 
from Phil. Trans. 1803, as follows :— 
“Tf a small crucible containing gold be inserted in a larger one 
containing arsenic and an inverted crucible be luted on by way of 
a cover and the apparatus be heated strongly in a wind furnace, 
the arsenic will be raised in vapour, and the gold being fused in 
the arsenicated atmosphere, will combine with a small portion of 
it. The alloy hence resulting is of a grey colour, a coarse granular 
fracture, and very brittle. 
“‘ A heat equal to that of melting gold is by no means necessary 
to effect this combination, for if a plate of gold is merely brought 
to a full read heat in an atmosphere loaded with arsenic, the latter 
will unite superficially with the gold, and the alloy hence resulting 
being very fusive, will trickle in drops from the plate, till the 
whole of it is thus arsenicated. The alloy is scarcely .decompos- 
able by mere heat, and at a high temperature the arsenic that is 
driven off, carries a considerable proportion of gold with it.” 
An abstract of the above appears in Gmelin’s Handbook of 
Chemistry, Vol. vi., p. 238, London 1852, after which such com- 
pounds are ignored by more modern English writers, except a 
bare statement in Watt’s Dictionary of Chemistry Vol. 1, 1872, 
that gold combines with arsenic. 
In Brough Smyth’s Gold Fields and Mineral Districts of 
Victoria, Melbourne 1869, there is a statement that a quantity 
of arsenical gold was found by some Chinamen in the rubbish from 
disused roasting kilns at Stawell in Victoria, this was examined 
by Mr. Newbery, who stated that the gold had probably taken up 
the arsenic (when the latter was in a state of vapour) during the 
roasting of arsenical ores, as native arsenides of gold were unknown 
in Victoria. 
_A. Deschamps (Comptes Rendus lxxxvi., 1022-3 and 1065-6), 
states that Au, As. is formed asa dark red powder when metallic 
arsenic is placed in a solution of gold chloride: By fusion with 
