GEOLOGY OF GOLD.

Otago Witness, Issue 62, 24 July 1852, Page 1

GEOLOGY OF GOLD.

Gold is more particularly found in what are called the primary or non-fossilifexous .rocks, commonly in quartz, granite, or porphyry, and likewise in slate. It is, however, found beyond the primary districts, in the rivers ■which flow from them, and carry in their streams the detritus of the primary formations. Emery and quicksilver are frequently found in gold countries. It is considered by some that gold is not to be found as an ore, chemically united with other elements, but always in a native or pure state, even if mechanically combined with platinum, silver, palladium, or other allied metals. When in rock, it is therefore found in seeds, thin leaves, knobs, or even great lumps, from a seed barely to be seen, to lumps which have been met with above 100 lbs. weight, and worth some 4000 sovereigns. The gold may be either spread everywhere, and mixed up throughout the rock, or it may be in veins or lodes, spreading about like the twigs of a tree — here thickly, there scantily. As connected with the primary formations, gold veins are found very extensively ; but it is only in some districts that they are found worth working, as they must be followed a? a mining operation, but of such a kind that the y^eld of mineral is small, even if the worth is great.' " It is for this reason that the gold veins in the primary rocks of our island are not wrought, "as a mass of mineral must be powdered up, more than the returns will pay. The Merionethshire and Wicklowshire have yielded no permanent results. Indeed, although gold veins are worked in some places, it is only in California that the gold rocks have been found worth working on a large scale. It is to the rivers we have to look for the most profitable supplies of gold. There, instead of hard rock, soft sand has to be searched, and the gold is often thrown together under natural arrangements ; while there is a better prospect of getting on a bunch or lump of rich ore. The gold-bearing rivers may be within the primary formations or beyond them. The chief New Holland gold diggings hitherto reported being connected with the basin of the River Murray, it becomes useful to give some account of the river system. This river may justly rank among the great ones of the world, and is the greatest on the ISTew Holland mainland, of which it may be called the Mississippi. The extent of its basin is by no means known, its eastern feeders being those with which we are at least acquainted. To the east it reaches beyond 151 deg. east, approaching the shores of New South "Wales ; to the north a ieeder has been found in 25 deg. south lat,, and on the south its mouth is in 35 deg. south lat., though some of its feeders in the Victoria province are as far south as beyond 23 deg. On the west its mouth, and probably many main feeders, reach to 130 deg. east longitude. The area of the basin at a mean is not less than 1400 miles from north to south, and 400 from east to west, covering between 500,000 and 600,000 square miles, or a district five times the area of these islands, and four times the extent of California." [We have been requested to insert in our columns the following extract from the " Illustrated London News" in reference to the practice of Plouiccopathy. — Ed. O. W.] The Medical Society on Homoeopathy. — At a very numerously attended meeting of the fellows and members of the Medical Society of London, the following resolutions were unanimously agreed to : — 1. That the practice of Homoeopathy, or the prescribing medicines in what are called " infinitesimal doses," under a pretence that they are useful in the cure of disease, is founded in palpable error, is a delusion on the part of the practitioner, a deception on . the public, and manifestly dangerous to its.welfa^;.-^ 2. That the Fellows of the Medical Society ©fLoA*?^ don cannot honourably hold any professional 'i<^, v v> tnunication with Homceopathists. . "'^UvJ" 3. That, consequently, any fellow; of- this;Sb'cie|y. ). who shall hereafter practise "^P^-^^^^^^^^fi shall knowingly meet in R°B s^?^|^^^^^^^|f--Homceopathist, will tn tsetj7l»^|^^p| thy of the Fellowship of thfe So&|tg*f^|pHHH|