Getting Gold: A Practical Treatise for Prospectors, Miners and Students

by J. C. F. Johnson

First, how comes it that alluvial gold is usually superior in purity to the "reef" gold immediately adjacent? Second, why is it that masses of gold, such as the huge nuggets found in Victoria and New South Wales, have never been discovered in lodes? Third, how is it that these heavy masses which, from their specific gravity, should be found only at the very bottom of the drifts, if placed by water action, are sometimes found in all positions from the surface to the bottom of the "wash"? And, lastly, why is it that when an alluvial lead is traced up to, or down from, an auriferous reef, that the light, angular gold lies close to the roof, while the heavy masses are often placed much farther away? Any one who has worked a ground sluice knows how extremely difficult it is with a strong head of water to shift from its position an ounce of solid gold. What, then, would be the force required to remove the Welcome Nugget? Under certain circumstances, Niagara would not be equal to the task.

The generally smooth appearance of alleged alluvial gold is adduced as an argument in favour of its having been carried by water from its original place of deposit, and thus in transit become waterworn; while some go so far as to say that it was shot out of the reefs in a molten state. The latter idea has been already disposed of, but if not, it may be dismissed with the statement that the heat which would melt silica in the masses met with in lodes would sublimate any gold contained, and dissipate it, not in nuggets but in fumes. With regard to the assumed waterworn appearance of alluvial gold, I have examined with the microscope the smooth surface of more than one apparently waterworn nugget, and found that it was not scratched and abraded, as would have been the case had it been really waterworn, but that it presented the same appearance, though infinitely finer in grain, as the surface of a piece of metal fresh from the electrical plating-bath.

Mr. Daintree, of the Victorian Geological Survey, many years ago discovered accidentally that gold chloride would deposit its metal on a metallic base in the presence of any organic substance. Mr. Daintree found that a piece of undissolved gold in a bottle containing chloride of gold in solution had, owing to a portion of the cork having fallen into the liquid, grown or accretionised so much that it could not be extracted through the neck. This lead Mr. Charles Wilkinson, who has contributed much to our scientific knowledge of metallurgy, to experiment further in the same direction. He says: "Using the most convenient salt of gold, the terchloride, and employing wood as the decomposing agent, in order to imitate as closely as possible the organic matter supposed to decompose the solution circulating through the drifts, I first immersed a piece of cubic iron pyrites taken from the coal formation of Cape Otway, far distant from any of our gold rocks, and therefore less likely to contain gold than other pyrites. The specimen (No. 1) was kept in dilute solution for about three weeks, and is completely covered with a bright film of gold. I afterwards filed off the gold from one side of a cube crystal to show the pyrites itself and the thickness of the surrounding coating, which is thicker than ordinary notepaper. If the conditions had continued favourable for a very lengthened period, this specimen would doubtless have formed the nucleus of a large nugget. Iron, copper, and arsenical pyrites, antimony, galena, molybdenite, zinc blende, and wolfram were treated in the above manner with similar results. In the above experiments a small chip of wood was employed as the decomposing agent. In one instance I used a piece of leather. All through the wood and leather gold was disseminated in fine particles, and when cut through the characteristic metallic lustre was brightly reflected. The first six of these sulphides were also operated upon simply in the solution without organic matter; but they remained unaltered."

Wilkinson found that when the solution of gold chloride was as strong as, say, four grains to the ounce of water, that the pyrites or other base began to decompose, and the iron sulphide changed to yellow oxide, the "gossan" of our lodes, and that though the gold was deposited, this occurred in an irregular way, and it was coated with a dark brown powdery film something like the "black gold," often found in drifts containing much ferruginous matter. Such were the curious Victorian nuggets Spondulix and Lothair.

Professor Newbery also made a number of similar experiments, and arrived at like results. He states as follows: "I placed a cube of galena in a solution of chloride of gold, with free access of air, and put in organic matter; gold was deposited as usual, in a bright metallic film, apparently completely coating the cube. After a few months the film burst along the edges of the cube, and remained in that state with the cracks open without any further alteration in size or form being apparent. Upon removing it a few days ago and breaking it open, I found that a large portion of the galena had been decomposed, forming chloride and sulphate of lead and free sulphur, which were mixed together, encasing a small nucleus of undecomposed sulphate of lead. The formation of these salts had exerted sufficient force to burst open the gold coating, which upon the outside had the mammillary form noticed by Wilkinson, while the inside was rough and irregular with crystals forcing their way into the lead salts. Had this action continued undisturbed, the result would have been a nugget with a nucleus of lead salts, or if there had been a current to remove the results of decomposition, a nugget without a nucleus of foreign matter."

But Newbery also made another discovery which still further establishes the probability of the accretionary growth of gold in drifts. In the first experiments both investigators used organic substances as the reagent to cause the deposit of gold on its base, and in each case these substances whether woodchips, leather, or even dead flies, were found to be so absolutely impregnated with gold as to leave a golden skeleton when afterwards burned. Timber found in the Ballarat deep leads has been proved to be similarly impregnated.

Newbery found that gold could also be deposited on sulphurets without any other reagent. He says: "In our mineral sulphurets, however, we have agents which are not only capable of reducing gold and silver from solution, but besides are capable of locating them when so reduced in coherent and bulky masses. Thus the aggregation of the nuggety forms of gold from solution becomes a still more simple matter, only one reagent being necessary, so that there is a greater probability of such depositions obtaining than were a double process necessary. Knowing the action of sulphides, the manner or the mode of formation of a portion at least of these nuggets seems apparent. Conceive a stream or river fed by springs rising in a country intersected by auriferous reefs, and consequently in this case carrying gold in solution; the drift of such a country must be to a greater or lesser extent pyritous, so that the debris forming the beds of these streams or rivers will certainly contain nodules of such matters disseminated or even stopping them in actual contact with the flow of water. It follows, then, from what has been previously affirmed, that there will be a reduction of gold by these nodules, and that the metal thus reduced will be firmly attached to them, at first in minute spangles isolated from each other, but afterwards accumulating and connecting in a gradual manner at that point of the pyritous mass most subject to the current until a continuous film of some size appears. This being formed the pyrites and gold are to a certain extent polarised, the film or irregular but connected mass of gold forming the negative, and the pyrites the positive end of a voltaic pair; and so according as the polarisation is advanced to completion the further deposition of gold is changed in its manner from an indiscriminate to an orderly and selective deposition concentrated upon the negative or gold plate. The deposition of gold being thus controlled, its loss by dispersion or from the crumbling away of the sustaining pyrites is nearly or quite prevented, a conservative effect which we could scarcely expect to obtain if organic matter were the reducing agent. Meanwhile there is a gradual wasting away of the pyrites or positive pole, its sulphur being oxidised to sulphuric acid and its iron to sesquioxide of iron, or hematite, a substance very generally associated with gold nuggets. According to the original size of the pyritous mass, the protection it receives from the action of oxidising substances other than gold, the strength of the gold solution, length of exposure to it, the rate of supply and velocity of stream, will be the size of the gold nugget. As to the size of a pyritous mass necessary to produce in this manner a large nugget, it is by no means considerable. A mass of common pyrites (bisulphide of iron) weighing only 12 lbs. is competent for the construction of the famous 'Welcome Nugget,' an Australian find having weight equal to 152 lbs. avoirdupois. Such masses of pyrites are by no means uncommon in our drifts or the beds of our mountain streams. Thus we find that no straining of the imagination is required to conceive of this mode of formation for the huge masses of gold found in Australia in particular, such as the Welcome Nugget, 184 lbs. 9 oz.; the Welcome Stranger, a surface nugget, 190 lbs. after smelting; the Braidwood specimen nugget, 350 lbs., two-thirds gold; besides many other large masses of almost virgin gold which have been obtained from time to time in the alluvial diggings."

The author has made a number of experiments in the same direction, but more with the idea of demonstrating how possibly gold may in certain cases have been deposited in siliceous formations after such formations had solidified. Some of the results were remarkable and indeed unexpected. I found that I could produce artificial specimens of auriferous quartz from stone which had previously contained no gold whatever, also that it was not absolutely necessary that the stone so treated should contain any metallic sulphides.

The following was contributed by the author and is from the "Transactions" of the Australasian Institute of Mining Engineers for 1893:—

"THE DEPOSITION OF GOLD.