The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1896-11-25
and in South America IL Is sometimes
MIXED with bismuth.

and in South America IL Is sometimes
mixed with bismuth.
. / have spent some time Watching the
placer miners in different parts OF the
West. Placer mining was the chief
source Of gold production in .he days
Of 1Si9. II is still carried on, but the
output is much less than in the past.
The chief placer mines of to day are in
Siberia, where tho earth has come.
times to be dug up in frozen state
and melted before the gold can be ex-
tracted. This is the case in some OF
the Yukon River mines. The fact that
there is gold placer is evidence that
there is goid-bearing rock near by,
and miners pretend to tell from the
character of the gold of the placer us
TO the nearness oil the gold-benring
rock from which it comes. II the gold
dust is very fine it is supposed to have
come long distance. IL coarse 1T is
thought the lead is not far of. Some
of the first mining of California was OF
gold scales which measured less than
1-16th of an inch in length and one
millimeter in diameter.
Placer miners usually find their
biggest nuggets in streams where the
powders are large. Where the
streams are fine gravel the gold is
generally fine aud scaly. The biggest
nugget ever discovered in this coun-
try was taken out of n mine at Carson
Hill, in Caleveras County, California.
It weighed 1876 pounds and was worth
more than $4,000 A number of
other large nuggets were found in this
same region, ranging in value from
$1,000 upward. In 1866 nugget of
gold was discovered in Sierra County,
CAL. worth $40, 900. and in 1850 mass
Of quartz aud gold was picked up in
Tuolumne County which was worth
| $50, 900. Outside of California some
| of the largest lumps of gold in the
United States have come from the
South. North Carolina has produced
three nuggets ranging in size from
thirteen and n half pounds to thirty
seven pounds, and in Georgia n num-
Der of big nuggets have been discov-
cred, the largest of which weighed
737 pennyweights.
Through the mining engineers
whom have met here in the West and
information which has recently come
to the director of the mint at Wash
ington, | am able to givs some facts
as 20 the mines of Africa, which are
making such change in the gold
product of the world. These gold
mines are q surprise to geologists.
One famous man said he would have
rather expected to find gold IN the fens
of Scotland than IN the Rand District
of South Africa. William Weston, a
leading mining engineer of Cripple
Creek and n graduate of the Royal
School of Mines of London, tells me
that he believes that the South Afri-
can gold deposits originally consisted
of the bed of great lake, which,
having been dried up and Bolidiiied,
was by the action of the elements so
heaved up that it stood half on end.
The upper half OF this great gold de-
posit is now being mined, but as the
region is further developed the miners
will have TO go deeper and deeper into
the earth and the cost will be much
greater. As it is the prospects of an
enormous quantity of gold from South
Africa are excellent.
Hamilton Smith, who is perhaps
one of the best mining engineers OF
the world, and who was here not long
ago as the agent for the Rothschilds
to look up their American invest
ments, estimates that the Rand gold
district of Africa will produce billion
and a quarter dollars worth of gold.
He says that gold he's been found
there rs far down in the earth as 2500
feet. and that it exists in all probable