nters: then putting it into the
smith's forge, to see if it would liquefy and separate from the dross,
but it only evaporated in fumes, which drove them from the smithy by
their offensive odour. Not one of these experimenters, whether more or
less skilled, thought of subjecting it to the simple and certain test
of cutting it with a knife, of which the substance in question is not
susceptible, whereas gold cuts like tough cheese. Enough, however, had
been done to confirm suspicions which had been floating in the minds
of many of the diggers, that this rapid wealth-finding was a delusion
and a lie. All doubts upon the subject were finally set at rest by the
professors of mineralogy in the colleges, and the practical chemists
in Edinburgh and Glasgow, informing certain inquirers as to the real
nature of this deceptive substance. It is of two kinds: the one with a
gray, the other with a brown base--the latter much more common than
the former; the one shining with a whitish, the other, with a
yellowish lustre. The one is _galena_, a sulphuret of lead; the other,
_pyrites_, a sulphuret of iron. These pyrites are very extensively
diffused, and are said to be worth about L.2 a ton. Pity it is that
even this trifle should be lost to the poor quarryman, who has only to
lay them aside when wheeling away his rubbish till they accumulate to
such a quantity as to be worth a purchaser's notice, but who does not
know where to find a customer.

The Lomonds were now again left to their solitude and silence, a few
stray persons visiting them only from curiosity, to see the place and
its productions which had caused such excitement. But the mania did
not abate all at once. A village patriarch, skilled in fairy lore,
entertained some of the gold-seekers with the following legend, which
had the effect of sending them in search of the precious metal
elsewhere. According to this ancient, a fairy, in times long gone by,
appeared on a summer gloaming to a boy herding cattle in the place
indicated by the following doggrel, and told him that--

If Auchindownie cock does not craw,
If Balmain horn does not blaw,
I'll shew you the gold in _Largo Law_.

'But,' added this benevolent son of Puck, 'if I leave you when these
happen--for I must then return home immediately--take you notice where
the brindled ox lies down, and there you will find the gold.' The cock
crew and the horn blew. The fairy vanished, but the boy observed where
the b