Chap. XIX.] 
GOLD AND SILVEE. 
Whilst it is an admitted fact that gold has sometimes been so diffused 
in minute and imperceptible particles in certain rocks, we know of no case, 
I repeat, in which the gold contained in veinstones increases in volume as 
you descend into the body of a mountain. On the contrary, the indis- 
putable fact is, that the chief quantities of gold, including all the consider- 
able lumps and pepitas, have been found imbedded in the upper parts of 
the veinstones, and have been broken up and transported with the debris 
of the mountain- tops down the slopes and into adjacent valleys. 
In closing these remarks, let me express my opinion that the fear that 
gold may be greatly depreciated in value relative to silver (a fear which 
at one time seized upon the minds of some people) seems to me to be un- 
warranted by the data registered in the crust of the earth ; for, looking to 
all the recent discoveries, my readers may be assured that gold is much the 
most restricted (in its native distribution) of the precious metals. Argen- 
tiferous lead, on the contrary, expands so largely downwards into the 
bowels of the rocks, as to lead us to believe that it must yield enormous 
quantities of silver for ages to come — and the more so in proportion as 
better machinery and new inventions shall lessen the difficulty of subter- 
ranean mining*. It may indeed well be doubted whether the quantities 
both of gold and silver procured from regions unknown to our progenitors 
will prove more than sufficient to meet the exigencies of an enormously, 
increased population and our augmenting commerce and luxury. But 
quitting this theme I would simply say, as a geologist, that Providence 
seems to have adjusted the relative value of these two precious metals for 
the use of man, and that their relations, having remained the same for 
ages, will long survive all theories. Modern science, in short, instead of 
contradicting, only confirms the truth of the aphorism of the patriarch 
Job, which thus shadowed forth the downward persistence of the one and 
the superficial distribution of the other : — " Surely there is a vein for the 
silver The earth hath dust of gold " f . 
* A Eeport from the late Colonel Lloyd (J ourn. of silver will be much augmented, reminding me 
E. Geograph. Soc. vol. xxiii. p. 196) showed to how tracts in Spain which contained rich siiver- 
what a vast extent silver might yet be extracted mines in the days of Hannibal had recently proved 
from the South- American mines. This was, in- to be highly productive, 
deed, the view taken long ago by Humboldt, who t The Book of Job, chap. 28. 
expressed to me his conviction that the produce 
