Getting Gold | Page 5

a medium of exchange, and its high
appreciation is due, first, to the fact that it is in almost universal request;
and, secondly, to its comparative scarcity; yet, oddly enough, with the
exception of that humble but serviceable metal iron, gold is the most
widely distributed metal known. Few, if any, countries do not possess it,
and in most parts of the world, civilised and uncivilised, it is mined for
and brought to market. The torrid, temperate, and frigid zones are
almost equally auriferous. Siberia, mid-Asia, most parts of Europe,
down to equatorial and southern Africa in the Old World, and north,
central, and southern America, with Australasia, in what may be termed
the New World, are all producers of gold in payable quantities.
In the earlier ages, the principal source of the precious metal was
probably Africa, which has always been prolific in gold. To this day
there are to be seen in the southern provinces of Egypt excavations and
the remains of old mine buildings and appliances left by the ancient
gold-miners, who were mostly State prisoners. Some of these mines
were worked by the Pharaohs of, and before, the time of Moses; and in
these dreadful places thousands of Israelites were driven to death by the
taskmaster's whip. Amongst the old appliances is one which
approximated very closely to the amalgamating, or blanket table, of a
modern quartz mill.
The grinding was done between two stones, and possibly by means of
such primitive mechanism as is used to-day by the natives of Korea.
The Korean Mill is simply a large hard stone to which a rocking motion
is given by manual power by means of the bamboo handles while the
ore is crushed between the upper and basement stone.
Solomon says "there is no new thing under the sun"; certainly there is
much that is not absolutely new in appliances for gold extraction. I
lately learned that the principle of one of our newest concentrating
machines, the Frue vanner, was known in India and the East centuries

ago; and we have it on good authority--that of Pliny--that gold saving
by amalgamation with mercury was practised before the Christian era.
It will not be surprising then if, ere long, some one claims to have
invented the Korean Mill, with improvements.
Few subjects in mineralogical science have evoked more controversy
than the origin of gold. In the Middle Ages, and, indeed, down to the
time of that great philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton, who was himself
bitten with the craze, it was widely believed that, by what was known
as transmutation, the baser metals might be changed to gold; and much
time and trouble were expended in attempts to make gold--needless to
say without the desired result. Doubtless, however, many valuable
additions to chemical science, and also some useful metallic alloys,
were thus discovered.
The latest startling statement on this subject comes from, of course, the
wonderland of the world, America. In a recently published journal it is
said that a scientific metallurgist there has succeeded in producing
absolutely pure gold, which stands all tests, from silver. Needless to say,
if this were true, at all events the much vexed hi- metallic question
would be solved at once and for all time.
It is now admitted by all specialists that the royal metal, though
differing in material respects in its mode of occurrence from its useful
but more plebeian brethren of the mineral kingdom, has yet been
deposited under similar conditions from mineral salts held in solution.
The first mode of obtaining this much desired metal was doubtless by
washing the sand of rivers which flowed through auriferous strata.
Some of these, such as the Lydian stream, Pactolus, were supposed to
renew their golden stores miraculously each year. What really
happened was that the winter floods detached portions of auriferous
drift from the banks, which, being disintegrated by the rush and flow of
the water, would naturally deposit in the still reaches and eddies any
gold that might be contained therein.
The mode of washing was exactly that carried on by the natives in
some districts of Africa to-day. A wooden bowl was partly filled with

auriferous sand and mud, and, standing knee-deep in the stream, the
operator added a little water, and caused the contents of the bowl to
take a circular motion, somewhat as the modern digger does with his
tin dish, with this difference, that his ancient prototype allowed the
water and lighter particles to escape over the rim as he swirled the stuff
round and round. I presume, in finishing the operation, he collected the
golden grains by gently lapping the water over the reduced material,
much as we do now.
I have already spoken of the mode in which auriferous lode-stuff was
treated in early times--i.e., by