for the
writer, who has published several articles thereon, wherein it was
contended that not only was gold deposited in the lodes from aqueous
solution, but that some gold found in form of nuggets had not been
derived from lodes but was nascent in its alluvial bed; and for this
proof was afforded by the fact that certain nuggets have been unearthed
having the shape of an adjacent pebble or angular fragment of stone
indented in them. Moreover, no true nugget of any great size has ever
been found in a lode such as the Welcome, 2159 oz., or the Welcome
Stranger, 2280 oz.; while it was accidentally discovered some years ago
that gold could be induced to deposit itself from its mineral salt to
the metallic state on any suitable base, such as iron sulphide.

"Following out this fact, I have experimented with various salts of
gold, and have obtained some very remarkable results. I have found it
practicable to produce most natural looking specimens of auriferous
quartz from stone which previously, as proved by assay, contained no
gold whatever. Moreover, the gold, which penetrates the stone in a
thorough manner, assumes some of the more natural forms. It is always
more or less mammillary, but at times, owing to causes which I have not
yet quite satisfied myself upon, is decidedly dendroidal, as may be seen
in one of the specimens which I have submitted to members. Moreover,
I find it possible to moderate the colour and to produce a specimen in
which the gold shall be as ruddy yellow as in the ferro-oxide gangue of
Mount Morgan, or to tone it to the pale primrose hue of the product of
the Croydon mines.

"I note that the action of the bath in which the stone is treated has a
particularly disintegrating effect on many of the specimens. Some, which
before immersion were of a particularly flinty texture, became in a few
weeks so friable that they could be broken up by the fingers. So far
as my experiments have extended they have proved this, that it was not
essential that the silica and gold should have been deposited at the one
time in auriferous lodes. A non-auriferous siliceous solution may have
filled a fissure, and, after solidifying, some volcanic disturbance may
have forced water impregnated with a gold salt through the interstices
of the lode formation, when, if the conditions were favourable, the gold
would be deposited in metallic forms. I prefer, for reasons which will
probably be understood, not to say exactly by wha