Metamorphism is most common among rocks of the earlier geological ages, and most rare among rocks of recent formation.  No doubt it is now in progress where deep-buried sediments are invaded by heat either from intrusive igneous masses or from the earth’s interior, or are suffering slow deformation under the thrust of mountain-making forces.

Suggest how rocks now in process of metamorphism may sometimes be exposed to view.  Why do metamorphic rocks appear on the surface to-day?

MINERAL VEINS

In regions of folded and broken rocks fissures are frequently found to be filled with sheets of crystalline minerals deposited from solution by underground water, and fissures thus filled are known as mineral veins.  Much of the importance of mineral veins is due to the fact that they are often metalliferous, carrying valuable native metals and metallic ores disseminated in fine particles, in strings, and sometimes in large masses in the midst of the valueless nonmetallic minerals which make up what is known as the vein stone.

The most common vein stones are quartz and calcite.  Fluorite (calcium fluoride), a mineral harder than calcite and crystallizing in cubes of various colors, and Barite (barium sulphate), a heavy white mineral, are abundant in many veins.

The gold-bearing quartz veins of California traverse the metamorphic slates of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Below the zone of solution (p. 45) these veins consist of a vein stone of quartz mingled with pyrite (p. 13), the latter containing threads and grains of native gold.  But to the depth of about fifty feet from the surface the pyrite of the vein has been dissolved, leaving a rusty, cellular quartz with grains of the insoluble gold scattered through it.

The placer deposits of California and other regions are gold-bearing deposits of gravel and sand in river beds.  The heavy gold is apt to be found mostly near or upon the solid rock, and its grains, like those of the sand, are always rounded.  How the gold came in the placers we may leave the pupil to suggest.

Copper is found in a number of ores, and also in the native metal.  Below the zone of surface changes the ore of a copper vein is often a double sulphide of iron and copper called chalcopyrite, a mineral softer than pyrite—­it can easily be scratched with a knife—­and deeper yellow in color.  For several score of feet below the ground the vein may consist of rusty quartz from which the metallic ores have been dissolved; but at the base of the zone of solution we may find exceedingly rich deposits of copper ores,—­ copper sulphides, red and black copper oxides, and green and blue copper carbonates, which have clearly been brought down in solution from the leached upper portion of the vein.