THE NATURALISTS' COMPANION. 
167 
raised above the sea, it is often found 
to be a rich mining ground. Instances 
of this are seen on the coast af OregoiV, 
where the beach yields quite a large 
quantity of gold and platinum; and 
again in the Black Hills, where the old 
Potsdam Sandstone beach, foimed by 
the detritis from the beating ol the 
Silurian Sea waves upon the auriferous 
<]uartz-veined cliffs of the Laurentian 
and Huronian rocks, have formed a 
rich mining field. 
But the huge California nuggets were 
not thus formed. They never were in 
veins, therefore could not have been 
produced by the desintegiation of the 
veins. These nuggets are so differently 
characterized from the placer gold that 
they could not have been derived from 
the (juartz veins. Then how were these 
great nuggets deposited? 
It is a well authenticated geological 
fact that the Pacific Coast was once the 
bed of the ocean—as were all extensive 
gold fields. It is also plainly seen that 
ail extensive gold bearing fields have 
been subject to extensive igneous action, 
as the volcanic rocks plainly show. 
Now, there was a })eriod—and, geolog¬ 
ically speaking, not so very remote— 
when the volcanic fires along the west¬ 
ern coast of America caused the entire 
ocean border to boil from the northern 
to the southern extremities. 
Now, sea water contains two and one- 
half pounds of salt to every one hundred 
})Ounds of water—and salt is, chemically 
speaking, chlorid of sodium, that is, 
consists of chlorine gas and sodium. 
Gold and silver are soluable in chlorine, 
and when the ocean was boiling hot the 
chlorine was either freed from the salt 
by the heat, or by the sulphuric acid 
and oxide of manganese, that the vol¬ 
canoes belched forth or i)roduced, and 
this free chlorine dissolved both the gold 
and silver. This accounts for these 
gold nuggets never being free from sil- 
vei’. As the ocean grew cooler, the 
next step was precipitation. The free 
gold and silver was pi'obably precipita¬ 
ted by potash or a similar chemical, and 
that enclosed in sulphates by sulphate 
of iron, while the chlorine evaporated 
to become again united in the salt. 
And then, wei'e deposited by the 
whirling eddies of this boiling sea, the 
huge nuggets in revines and narrow 
confined vales—for the gold lumps are 
never found on mountain tops or in 
open plains. Into crevices, or apertures, 
in these ravines or vales, flowed the sil¬ 
ica, which during the long continuous 
action of heated water and acids, have 
been dissolved from the neighboring 
rocks. Into these huge pockets of soft 
quartz were gradually precipitated by 
the eddies produced by the conforma¬ 
tion, the huge masses of gold. 
But where did the gold and silver- 
come from ? They were obtained from 
the sea. All oceans, even those of the 
present day, contain gold, silver and 
copper, ■ 
Some ten year's ago.two noted Pfi-ench 
chemists demonstrated that the ocean 
contained a notable amount of silver in 
solution. Since then other chemists 
have verified these PAench philosophers’ 
experiments, in other parts of the world. 
Notable among these the celebrated 
chemist,Field, who resides at Coquimbo, 
in Chilli. The water he took from the 
Pacific Ocean gave the sanre results as 
that obtained from the English Channel, 
off St. Malo, in PTance, After the ex¬ 
periments of many chemists, it has been 
demonstrated by car-eful calculation, 
that the whole ocean cannot contain 
less than two mrllions of tons of silver 
in solution. 
