, 1878-02-16
GOLD AND SILVER.
Professor Cummings Lecture.


Professor Cummings Lecture.
Professor Cunning, the geGlogist, delivered
the last of his course of lectures last evening,
at the Congregational church, to good aud.
iencc. His subject WAS the "origin OF
Gold and Silver" He began his subject by
saving crab by the seaside IS commonplace.
A crab idealized and placed as sign OF the
zodiac is, sublime Silver and gold IN the
mine are commonplace. 1t would be his
task to lift them up, idealize them and place
them IS sign in the zodiac through which
creation has moved In the heaven they
were and are. Gold and silver are not 10
Called on the earth. They are universal
through the galaxies. With this demonstra-
ton under her feet, that no element Is local.
that all clements are universal, science Is
sublime. Winged by demonstration OF
science the poet utters CLEAN of scientific
truth when he makes Satan vingly describe
the creation of the sun:
"And by his chambers on piles OF gold,
And build his throne on beams OF gold,
And wrap him in a rusty mantle Of gold,
And bid him reign and burn like himself.
The first sep creation took with precious
metals was to wed them to sulphur. Sulphur
is the atmosphere of metals. The metallic
atoms first dwelt alone and were ditfused
through the heaven. They next dwelt with
sulphur and were ditfused through the ocean.
Every ton of ocean to-day holds one gram OF
gold. The metals have come not IRON sea
OF fire below but from seas of water above.
The speaker showed that metals began to be
introduced into the rocks during the epoch
in which life was first introduced into the
oceans. The Inference Is that silver and
gold, as other metals, have been withdrawn
from circulation in the seas through the
agency of life or death.
1t is the province of science to make the
mind see what the eye cannot see. W Nhen
lightning stabs the cloud the eye sees only
the Jagged edge of the riven air. The mind
sees the lightning itself. We are to enter a
realm of nature beyond ours senses, and pc
ture by the imagination what We can see
only through pictures.
The speaker imagined dead fly thrown
into the water, and drew tie little plants
which would soon grow from It. They are
the type of all sea plants, and he showed
how they take silver and gold and copper
and lead from the sea. He delincated one OF
these SEA weeds, which grows in the North
Pacific to length of 1900 feet, ranging III
size from microscopic cell to stem which
wonih over-tOp four of the mightiest trees OF
California growing end to end, and IN multi
tude oyer-toppiGg all the weeds ami trees
that mine earth and AIR, for the elements OF
growth are the weeds that mine the vast bo-
nanzas of ocean for silver and gold. He
showed that weed-peopied oceans had rolled
over the globe from the dawn OF hfe TIL
now. Sea and sea-woed had been every
where, and everywhere are silver and gold
Almost every ere contains silver. Amos.
every crystal Of iron pyrite contains gold.
From living sea weeds ne turned to decay
in9 animals and showed that death and d-cay
play more important part In Withdrawing
metals from the sea than life. Decaylng or
ganisIns take oxygen from metallic sulpiiates
and reduce them to srlph!des, which are III
soluble The conclusion reached from 4
large array Of facts WIS that metals had all
been Withdrawal from oceans and laid away
in sediments through living sea weeds and
decaying weeds ard animals. Life and death
have been mining the seas SO loi;g, and on
such a scale, that the wonder Is they have
not mined them out But nature moves in
cycles, and what she gave up in one age she
takes back III another. 1t is no uncommon
thing to see a metallic lode destroyed and
tie metal carried away down to 4 depth of
Nmore than hundred feet The speaker de-
scribed the immense erosion OF the gold veins
of California, of which We have some monu-
ment in the ''blue gravel" Sediments be-
come rocks and nature gathers the atoms Of
metal into veins. He described the foIIna-
ton of assures, pictured nature IN the last
stages of solfatara a: Steamboat Springs,
Nevada; described AL immense iissure In
Iceland ct recent discovery. and pointed out
the cilCrts Of nature III the boiling cauldronS
there, which represent her III the first stages
OF s0ifatara, the stage OF metal making. The
missing steam and gases throw down silica IN
Jelly form and fill the tissure from above
downward. The uprushing currents of steam,
by mechanical Law, tend 20 leave the foot
wall Of the iissure and rise in perpendicular
Jets and columns. The currents of steam,
rising through the rocks, that lie in the
direction OF the assures dip, would decom-
pose them and e.t out their silica-ius as
they did with the propyite east OF the
Co:nstOck. If the heated water seeps through
sea born rocks it will filter out the PARTICLES
of silver and gold and copper and lead dif-
fused through them and bring them to the
tissure. They Will rise with the steam and
| be thrown down as the steam cools.
The freighted vOlumesOf steam, thespeaker
showed by chalk delineations, on nearing the
surface would leave the tissure and form an
ore channel parallel to its axis and wedging
against its foot-wall. The ore in the Com
stock is not in the fssure, but in an ore
channel outside of it. He showed how, as
fissures are filed from above downward,
there must be a limit at which the heated
water and vapor can no longer precipItate
their freight. He then glanced over the
leading metallic veins of the world and
showed that, in general, they grow poorer
as they deepen. In closing the speaker said
ne had traced the metals out Of nebulse into
oceans out of ocens into strata, and out OF
strata into veins. Through all these wan
derings he said silver and gold have kept
close companionship. Together they float In
the sea: together they wander on the eur
rent of heated subterranean rllls together
they lie, silver In the embrace of gold, In
crystals of pyrite. 1t is as If silver had
echoed the words of Ruth to Naomi and
said TO gold: :. Tntreat ME not to leave thee
or to return from following after thee; fog
whittier thou goest l viii go; where thou
lodgest will lodge; where thou diest viii
die, and there will l be buried. Record
| Union.
OLD 81, of the Atlanta Constitution,
on the "no hell" theories: eyer jess
max ere Niger belebe der amt no heahar'
| ter an see whar Yer comes fer Ebery