ORIGIN OF GOLD NUGGETS. 339 
The gold reduced by means of phosphorus in ether from very 
dilute solutions has quite a different appearance to that reduced 
by the sulphides and other substances given in the preceding 
experiments, the gold is reduced in such a finely divided state 
that it imparts a blue or purple tint to the water, and may take 
many years to completely precipitate and yield a clear solution. 
Some which I precipitated as far back as 1884 still have the gold 
in suspension. (A. Liversidge—On the Removal of Gold from 
Suspension and Solution by Lungoid Growths.—Report of the 
Aust. Assoc. Advt. of Science, 1890, p. 399, e¢ seq.) 
When the solution of gold is stronger, the gold comes down 
more quickly, and after a time becomes more or less crystallised, 
as in the following case :—The gold reduced from a one per cent. 
solution of the chloride of gold and sodium by phosphorus in 
ether, and which had been standing from September 1889 to April 
28, 1893, or three and a-half years, was seen under the microscope 
to be made up of a mass of narrow ribbons of gold—more or less 
matted together. The ribbons were of bright, lustrous, metallic 
gold, and fairly uniform in size; mixed with them were a few. 
rounded particles or beads of gold and some octohedral crystals. 
In another and weaker solution (fifteen gn. of the double sodium 
and gold chloride to fifteen ounces water) which was also allowed 
to stand for three and a-half years, from October 1889 to April 
1893, the gold was deposited in the form of masses of octohedrons, 
more or less well formed and large enough to be seen with an 
ordinary pocket lens. 
In the preceding experiments only the difference in the weight 
-of the nucleus is taken into account, the amount of gold reduced 
and deposited upon the sulphide or other reducing agent is 
neglected; in some cases the quantity was very large, but no 
attempt was made to ascertain the amount as the results were not 
required in this investigation. The question to be answered by 
‘the experiments was merely whether a nucleus of gold immersed 
in a solution of gold and in the presence of, or in contact with, a 
