Sierra County advocate. [volume] (Kingston, N.M.) 1884-1960, 1891-07-10
ABOUT VEIN FORMATION.

We rather suspect that there is
whole lot of humbug in much OF
the so-called scientific writing about
mining geology and vein formation.
There is some reason to think, too,
that much of o-called learning and
profundlty of those writer's is the
muddy mysticism that comes to
mushy brains all the time when
they venture away from shore.
The simple truth is that world
building is going on now as it has
been for geological ages. Heat,
frost and water are disintegratlng
the rocks and water is washing
down the resulting sands and de-
posting them into streta that are
hardening again into rock, 1t is
the old process that has been going
on since the dawn of silurian times.
In fact we build up the entire
science of geology upon what
we see being done all about
us. We know that certain causes
produce certain effects, and we
believe that they have always done
SO.
Why should mining geology or
vein formation be judged any differ
emily from other branches of geol-
cgy? As world building is yet
going on, why should men
suppose that vein formation, or the
deposit of ore, long since ceased?
We have all seen hot springs, whose
waters are depositing sediment to-
day; we have all seen water deposit
ing iron, forming bog iror in some
mnrshy spot; we have all seen drip
ping water in old mine workings,
which deposits iron or lime or silica
or may be all of them, Oh the wall
or ceiling or floor of drift or slopes.
An analysis of thermal waters
shows that any and all of the metals
can be found in them, and every
chamist knows that under favorable
conditions such as exist very often
in the earth, these metallic contents
must be deposited, just as the waters
we have cited deposit their contents
on the surface where we can see
them. The earth is full of water
courses below the surface: miner
who must fight water often thinks
it is too full. And as the water s
in these courses circulate through
The fissures in the earth's crust, as
blood does through the veins of the
body, they take up and deposit
metals. 1t is a common law OF
chemistry that when one thing goes
into solution it takes the place OF
another which is deposited, just as
sulphuretted hydi iogen added to an
acid solution precipitates lead,
copper, gold and silver. The earth
Is great chemical laboratory IN
which Nature, the great chemist, In
constantly doing what the weak
imltators in the workshops are try
ing to do. Why need we look any
farther to discover a cause for ore
deposits?
The water that carry the silica
and sulphur and all the metals are
circulating in the earth, and they
must circulate in assures and bed
ding planes, because there is no 9th
er place IN which they can circulate.
AS they dissolve and take up one
mineral, they leave another in Its
place, and in this way form ore
deposits. This is not an assump-
ton. 1t is telling only what we can
see and prove lis taking place every
day.
Supposing that, as is generally
the case, there are parallel assures
in rocks, may be few feet and
may he many feet distant from each
other. Suppose that these assures
approach each other in their down
ward course, and at some depth
unite into one fssure. Suppose
they have other assures branching
off from them at various angles,
and scores of other little fissures
branching off flom them. Now if
at some time in the past waters