The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-06-06
GOLD AND SILVER
IN PENNSYLVANIA
Review Of the Discoveries Of the Metals
10 This State.
SYSTEMATIC MINING PROBABLE
In Eighteen Counties Of the keystone
State Gold and Silver Have Been
Found..The Largest Known Gold
Deposit Is in Philadelphia.
From the Philadelphia Times.

From the Philadelphia Times.
Gold and silver has been found in
eighteen counties In Pennsylvania. In
Philadelphia, Buck, Montgomery,
Chester and Delaware gold and silver
have been taken from the clay, sand
and gravel deposits of the larger
streams. In the counties OF Adams,
Berks, Cumberland, Dauphin, Frank
lin, Fulton, Huntington. Lancaster,
Lebanon. Snyder, Wayne and York.
from rocks.
The largest known gold deposit is In
Philadelphia, and this precious metal
Is believed to exist in the clay, from
the extreme northeastern boundary Of
the county to the most southern limits.
Tests have been made in numerous
places at various times, with as large
a percentage Of favorable results as
in some Of the best gold fields Of the
west. For instance, a number Of years
ago Messrs. Dubois & Eckfeldt, ex-
perts, carefully tested a quantity of the
clay taken from the cellar of the mar
ket house, on Market street, near
Eleventh, where the grand depot Of the
Philadelphia and Reading Railroad
company now stands, and found a good
percentage of gold. This clay was
taken from depth of fourteen feet and
where there had been no artificial de-
posit. One hundred and thirty grams
(about 15la gralns) of it were dried and
treated and yielded * of milligram
(0.0154 grain). The experiment was re-
peated with clay taken from a brick
yard in the suburbs Of the city with
about the same result.
These gentlemen at the time esti-
mated this deposit of bearing clay
to meansure over ten square miles
under the paved part of the city,and Of
an average depth of fifteen feet. They
then cut out blocks of the clay in sew
eral places and ascertained that they
weighed 120 pounds per cubic foot, with
a specific gravity of 1.92. Their assays
gave three cents worth of gold to the
cubic foot, or 81 cents to the cubic yard.
Some of the most profitable hydraulic
working gold mines in the world aver
age less than % cents per cubic yard.
Taking only the area above given-and
this gold-bearing tract is very much
larger-they calculated there We're
41S0, ,0000 600 of cubic feet Of clay under
the streets and structures of ten square
miles of Philadelphia, "in which Sc
curely lies $1260O0,0OO. And If, as is
pretty certain, the corporate limits of
the city would afford eight times this
bulk of clay, we have more gold than
up to 1851 had been brought from Cali
fornia and Australia" Now these eX-
tracts from the proceedings of the
American Philosophical society. vol
ume VIII, page 273,read almost like a
fairy tale. But If the gentlemen had
gone further down and taken from the
gravel underneath the clay q cubic
yard Of the material, as a. practical
gold miner would. they would have had
much more astounding results. What
q pity Philadelphia is built upon a gold
mine of such colossal but now unavail-
ing wealth.
From what locality was this gold
carried to it's bed under the great me-
tropolis of Pennsylvania? Surely from
some lsoint further up the Delaware or
the Schuylkill. Naturally the rock
from which it was separated originat-
ed north of the city. How far north?
Great belts of gold-bearing rock c~-
tend from the eastern coast of Nova
Scotia in southwesterly direction
through the New England, the Middle
and the Southern states to central
Georgia and Alabama. These reefs
have not been mined to any consider
able extent in Pennsylvania. or any Of
the Eastern or Middle states, because
they have not as yet been discovered in
sufficiently broad and rich bodies to
warrant the expenditure of much capi-
tai for development. and subsequent
working Several Of the reefs cross The
Delaware and the Schuylkill above
Philadelphia and from these apparent
ly the gold was carried into the i'm
mense clay and gravel bed above the