Nor is the surrounding mass of slate in which this vein is inclosed without abundant evidences of a highly auriferous character.  Scales of gold are everywhere to be seen between its laminae, and, when removed and subjected to the processes of “dressing,” there can be little doubt of its also yielding a very handsome return.  In fact, the entire mass of material which is known to be auriferous is not less than twelve to fifteen inches at the surface, and will doubtless be found, as all experience and analogy in the district have hitherto shown to be the case, to increase very considerably with the increased depth to which the shafts will soon be carried.  No difficulties whatever are apprehended here in going to a very considerable depth, as the slate is not hard, and easily permits the miner in his progress to bear in upon it without drilling upon the closer and more tenacious quartz.

The open cut, made by the original owners of the Montague property, and by which the veins have been in some degree exposed, absurd and culpable as it is as a mode of mining, has yet served a good purpose in showing in a very distinct manner the structure of these veins,—­a structure which is found to be on the whole very general in the Province.  The quartz is not found, as might naturally be supposed from its position among sedimentary rocks, lying in anything like a plain, even sheet of equal thickness.  On the contrary, it is seen to be marked by folds or plications, occurring at tolerably regular intervals, and crossing the vein at an angle of 40 deg. or 45 deg. to the west.  Similar folds may be produced in a sheet which is hung on a line and then drawn at one of the lower corners.  The cross-section of the vein is thus made to resemble somewhat the appearance of a chain of long links, the rolls or swells alternating with plain spaces through its whole extent.  Perhaps a better comparison is that of ripples or gentle waves, as seen following each other on the ebbtide in a still time, on the beach.

The distribution of the gold in the mass of the quartz appears to be highly influenced by this peculiar wavy or folded structure.  All the miners are agreed in the statement that the gold abounds most at the swells, or highest points of the waves of rock, and that the scarcely less valuable mispickel appears to follow the same law.  The spaces between are not found to be so rich as these points of undulation; and this structure must explain the signal contrast in thickness and productiveness which is everywhere seen in sinking a shaft in this district.  As the cutting passes through one of these original swells, the thickness of the vein at once increases, and again diminishes with equal certainty as the work proceeds,—­below this point destined again to go through with similar alternations in its mass.