“Ultimately, after a number of experiments, there was nothing left but to test for gold existing as a natural sulphide.  Taking 200 gr. of ore from a sample assaying 17 oz. fine gold per ton, grinding it finely and heating for some hours with yellow sodium sulphide—­on decomposing the filtrate and treating for gold I got a result at the rate of 12 oz. per ton.  This was repeated several times with the same result.

“This sample came from the lode at the 140 ft. level, whilst samples from the higher levels where the ore is more oxidised, although carrying the gold in exactly the same degree of fineness, do not give as high a percentage of auric sulphide.

“It would appear that all the gold in the pyrites (and I have never found any gold existing apart from the pyrites) has originally taken its place there as a sulphide.”

Professor Newbery, who made many valuable suggestions on the subject, says, speaking of gold in pyritous lodes: 

“As it (the gold salt) may have been in the same solution that deposited the pyrites, which probably contained its iron in the form of proto-carbonate with sulphates, it was not easy at first to imagine any ordinary salt of gold; but this I find can be accomplished with very dilute solutions in the presence of an alkaline carbonate and a large excess of carbonic acid, both of which are common constituents of mineral waters, especially in Victoria.  This is true of chloride of gold, and if the sulphide is required in solution, it is only necessary to charge the solution with an excess of sulphuretted hydrogen.  In this matter both sulphides may be retained in the same solution, depositing gradually with the escape of the carbonic acid.”

Pyritic lodes usually contain a considerable proportion of calcareous matter, mostly carbonates, and consequently it appears not improbable that the gold may remain in some instances as a sulphide, particularly in samples of pyrites, in which it cannot be detected even by the microscope until by calcination the iron sulphide is changed to an oxide, wherein the gold may be seen in minute metallic specks.  The whole subject is full of interest, and careful scientific investigation may lead to astonishing results.

CHAPTER V

THE GENESIOLOGY OF GOLD—­AURIFEROUS DRIFTS

Having considered the origin of auriferous lodes, and the mode by which in all probability the gold was conveyed to them and deposited as a metal, it is necessary also to inquire into the derivation of the gold of our auriferous drifts, and the reasons for its occurrence therein.

When quite a lad on the Victorian alluvial fields, I frequently heard old diggers assert that gold grew in the drifts where found.  At the time we understood this to mean that it grew like potatoes; and, although not prepared with a scientific argument to prove that such was not so, the idea was generally laughed at.  I have lived to learn that these old hard-heads were nearer the truth than possibly they clearly realised, and that gold does actually grow or agglomerate; and, indeed, is probably even now thus growing, though it is likely that the chemical and electric action in the mineral waters flowing through the drifts is not in this age nearly so active as formerly.