ORIGIN OF GOLD NUGGETS. 335 
them, the trial could not be relied on as the copper was not tested 
before the experiment was started. — 
The following quotation from Sterry Hunt is still another proof 
that gold does exist in solution in natural waters :—‘ I have in 
my possession a portion of a small trunk taken from the mud of 
a spring in the province of Ontario, in which the yet undecayed 
wood of the centre is seen to be incrusted by hard and brilliant 
iron pyrites. In like manner the trees found in the New Jersey 
sandstone became incrusted with copper sulphide, which, as decay 
went on, in great part replaced the woody tissue. Similar deposits 
of sulphides of copper and of iron often took place in basins where 
the organic matter was present in such a condition or in such 
quantity as to be entirely decomposed, and to leave no trace of its 
form, unlike the examples just mentioned. In this way have 
been formed fahlbands and beds of pyrites and other ores. The 
fact that such deposits are associated with silver and with gold 
leads to the conclusion that these metals have obeyed the same 
laws as iron and copper. It is known that both persalts of iron 
and soluble sulphides have the power of rendering gold soluble, 
and its subsequent deposition in the metallic state is then easily 
understood.” —Chemical and Geological Essays, 2nd Edition, 1879, 
p. 232. | 
J. C. Newbery analysed similar recent tree trunks from the 
Victorian Gold Fields, converted into pyrites, and found gold 
present. 
In 1876, when in New Zealand, I collected some iron pyrites, 
from a hot spring at Taupo, which was being deposited upon some 
twigs and branches of wood, the wood was much decayed, black, 
and quite rotten, but it still retained its form and character. The 
iron sulphide was on assay found to contain traces of gold, which 
must have been in solution in the water.—(Jour. Roy. Soc. N.S. 
Wales, 1877, p. 264). The waters from the Hot Springs occurr- 
ing in different parts of New Zealand, have been carefully analysed 
from time to time by Mr. Skey, F.c.s., Government Analyst, but 
I think that gold has not been detected in any of them, although 
