CONDITION OF GOLD IN QUARTZ AND CALCITE VEINS. 301 
amount of dull brown gold was left; but with no traces of 
crystallisation. 
A specimen of quartz from Armageddon Reef, Gilbert River, 
Queensland, showing ‘‘ spider leg” gold, was treated with hydro- 
fluoric acid to remove the quartz; the gold set free was seen to 
consist of striated wire-like forms and of cavernous octohedrons 
joined together into chains. 
An exceedingly rich specimen of water worn quartz and gold, 
containing more gold than quartz which was thought might show 
the gold crystallized, was next treated, but after removal of the 
quartz, the gold, although presenting a very bright and lustrous 
appearance did not show any recognisable crystalline form, it and 
the quartz had apparently solidified together and neither had 
been free to crystallise. Several other specimens were examined, 
but in none was any distinct crystalline form recognisable. 
The gold set free from vein quartz by hydrofluoric acid shows 
no sign of fusion (the old theory that the quartz of veins had 
originally been in a molten condition and had been ejected from 
below into fissures is of course nowadays no longer held) neither 
does it as a rule show any well marked cavities or in other favour- 
able condition for assuming such forms. 
It usually presents the appearance of irregular films, plates, 
threads and masses which are more or less connected together, 
sometimes so closely, that when the quartz is wholly removed, a 
rough spongy or cavernous mass of gold is left retaining more or 
less completely the outlines possessed by the fragment of auriferous 
quartz before it was acted upon by the acid. 
A specimen of the auriferous mispickel in calcite, from Lucknow, 
weighing about three ounces, was treated with hydrochloric acid 
to dissolve away the calcite ; the residue consisted of mispickel, 
quartz, and a white asbestiform mineral, the latter was not pre- 
viously visible; in addition to the more massive pieces thin plates 
of mispickel were left, and these had apparently surrounded 
crystals of calcite since some of them were arranged so as. to form 
