GOLD. 169 
and that a portion of these was presented to each of the 
fuests by way of dessert. Very extensive operations 
3r the discovery of gold were carried on during the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth, at Leadhills, in Lanarkshire, 
under the direction of an Englishman whose name was 
Bulmer. The trenches, the heaps of soil that were turned 
up, and other marks of these operations, are yet visible 
near the road between Leadhills and Elvanfoot. It is 
said that 300 men were then employed ; and that, in 
the course of a few years, a quantity of gold was col- 
lected, equal in value to 100,000/. sterling. Not many 
years ago similar operations were commenced under 
the superintendence of a celebrated manager of the 
Scottish lead mines. The gold was found immediately 
under the vegetable soil; and the method of obtaining 
it was to direct a small stream of water, so as to carry 
the soil along with it, to basins or hollow places, where 
the water might deposit the matters carried down by 
the force of its current. The matter thus deposited was 
repeatedly washed, till the whole of the earthy sub- 
stances were carried off. The gold, being heaviest, 
sunk to the bottom, and remained behind. The soil 
still furnishes gold ; but the produce would by no means 
be equal to the expense of collecting it. Searching for 
gold, therefore, is now regarded only as an amusement, 
and not as a source of profit. Grains of this metal 
are sometimes found, after great floods, among the 
sand of brooks in different parts of Scotland. 
The mode of extracting gold from its ore is by re- 
ducing it into a fine powder, and mixing this powder 
with quicksilver (^28). The latter having the quality 
of uniting with itself every particle of the precious 
metal, but being incapable of union with the other sub- 
stances, extracts it even from the largest portions of 
earth. The quicksilver, which has absorbed the gold, 
is then separated by means of heat ; it flies off in vapour, 
and leaves the other metal in the vessel used for the 
operation. 
VOL. i. i 
