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5 
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306 A. LIVERSIDGE. 
He quotes Selwyn’s hypothesis, and Selwyn and Ulrich( Physical 
Geography, Geology, and Mineralogy of Victoria, 1866) to the 
effect that all the large nuggets have been found on the western 
gold fields where extensive basaltic eruptions have taken place, 
while on the eastern and northern fields, where basaltic rocks are 
wanting or only of limited extent, the gold is usually fine and 
nuggets of more than one ounce are rare. He also states that 
Bischof has found gold sulphide to be soluble in pure water, and 
he has suggested that it may occur in that form in meteoric 
waters. | 
Newbery dissolved some gold sulphide in an alkaline bicarbonate 
and found that when a cube of pyrites and a chip of wood were 
introduced that small irregular grains of gold were deposited, and 
states that the gold is not deposited without the organic matter 
(ze. the wood). 
Newbery repeated and confirmed Wilkinson’s experiments. 
Newbery points out that there is little proof in nature of pyrites 
having acted as a nucleus; it carries gold both internally and 
attached externally, but we do not meet with gilded pyrites such 
as are obtained in laboratory experiments, and that in nature the 
two appear to have been deposited together. 
Newbery, out of one hundred samples of pyrites, found none 
with any coating of gold such as is obtained experimentally, but 
it was present in irregular grains and small octohedral crystals; 
in exceptional cases pieces of gold were found projecting, but all 
proved that the pyrites had not formed a nucleus for the gold 
but the reverse has been the case in the majority of instances, 7.e., 
the gold has been deposited first ; and he suggests that the gold 
may have been deposited first in the drift wood, as seen when 
organic matter, flies, &c., fall into a gold solution, and the pyrites 
afterwards deposited around it. 
He also refers (Laboratory Report, Melbourne, 1876) to Dain- 
tree’s discovery- of an enlarged fragment of gold in a bottle 
containing chloride of gold, and states that ‘“‘ Ulrich, who was 
