CONDITION OF GOLD IN QUARTZ AND CALCITE VEINS. 299 
ON THE CONDITION OF GOLD IN QUARTZ ANB 
CALCITE VEINS. 
By A. LIVERSIDGE, M.A., F.R.S., 
Professor of Chemistry, University of Sydney. 
[Read before the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, September 6, 1893.] 
THE condition in which gold occurs in veins and other matrices 
has long been a matter of interest to me, and from time to time 
I have made occasional experiments, as opportunity offered 
between other duties, to ascertain whether the gold, scattered 
through quartz veins and other gangues, is crystallised or not. 
When the gold occurs in a soft matrix like calcite or serpentine 
it very often is crystallised, so also when it occurs in cavities, 
such as those left by the removal of iron pyrites, but it is rather 
difficult at times to decide whether gold present in a hard matrix 
is or is not crystallised. Toanswer the question one cannot crush 
the specimen under a hammer or in a mortar, because this treat- 
ment would destroy the form of the gold as well as remove the 
enclosing matrix. 
In order to remove the gangue, usually quartz, the auriferous 
specimens were placed in the form of fragments, as large as 
possible, in a platinum crucible, or dish according to size and con- 
dition, and acted upon by the ordinary solution of hydrofluoric 
acid, until all the quartz or gangue was either removed, or so 
much disintegrated as to be easily removed or washed away from 
the gold. 
A piece of the porous white siliceous matrix resembling geysirité 
from Mount Morgan was attacked by hydrofluoric acid, but only 
one speck of gold was left, and that was not visible untif after the 
residue from the mineral had been crushed in an agate mortar. 
On treating the stalactites of auriferous brown hematite from 
Mount Morgan with hydrochloric acid, as described in a paper 
