33.—Gold.
Occurs in scales, grains and nuggets, or disseminated through cellular quartz; metallic lustre; without tarnish; can be cut and hammered into thin plates; not dissolved by nitric acid; gravity 19, when pure and of a rich gold yellow color. The pale or brass yellow specimens are much lighter, the gravity being as low as 13. A grayish yellow gold, occurring in small, flat grains has a gravity of about 16.
Localities.—Found in veins of quartz running through greenish or grayish slates, the quartz at the surface being generally full of cavities and rusted, and the slates below the surface often containing little cubic crystals of Iron Pyrites: also in the valleys traversed by mountain-streams and in the river sands and gravel below. Iron and Copper Pyrites, Galena and Blende frequently contain gold. Masses of quartz and pyrites from the gold-regions, which make no show of gold, sometimes pay well; the value of such specimens can be
determined only by an assayer. Eastern range of Appalachians, as Habersham, Rabun, Clark, Hall, Lumpkin and Lincoln Counties, Ga.; Abbeville, Chesterfield, Union, Lancaster and Pickens Counties, S. C.; Montgomery, Cabarras, Mechlenburg, Burke and Lincoln Counties, N. C.; Spotsylvania, Buckingham, Fauquier, Stafford, Culpepper, Orange, Goochland and Louisa Counties, Va.; Dedham, Mass.; Bridgewater, Vt.; Canaan and Lisbon, N. H.; on Sandy River and Madrid, Me. Numberless points along the higher Rocky Mountains and western slope of Sierra Nevada, as near Santa Fe, Cerillos and Avo, New Mex.; San Francisco, Wauba and Yuma District, Ariz; between Long’s Peak and Pike’s Peak, Col.; Comstock Lode, Nev.; Owyhee, Boise and Flint Districts and Poorman Lode, Idaho; Emigrant and Alder Gulches, Red Bluff and near Jefferson River, Mont.; Josephine District, Powder, Burnt, and John Day Rivers, western slope of Cascade Mountains, and southern coast, Oregon; Tulare, Fresno, Mariposa, Tuolumne, Calaveras, El Dorado, Placer, Nevada, Yuba, Sierra, Butte, Plumas, Shasta, Siskiyou Amador and Del Norte Counties, Cal. Rare in the coal-regions and Mississippi Valley.