The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-05-25

cooling surface of the earth, it pene-
| trated into the heated regions below
/ and millions of geysers were started to
| spouting their mineral impregnated
waters in every direction. Where the
! crust was thin explosions and upheav-
ais followed. Into riffs and chasms
these waters returned, to be again
elected, or to be the cause of further
explosions. Later. as the cooling pro-
cess continued, assures became more
abundant. and as the dry land began
10 appear mineral lodes were formed,
and the waters heavily charged with
silicates, carbonites of lime, sulphides,
etc, in solution, commenced to deposit
their contents in solid form.
Taken altogether, these were rather
strange geologic conditions from which
to commence the upbuilding of a habi-
table world. But, admitting that they
existed, and that the chemical agencies
of the period were favorable to the
production of metallic salts, and the
task of accounting for gold in quartz
veins that were previously barren is
regarded as easy by the advocates of
the hydrothermal theory. For instance,
chloride of gold. now found in sea
water, was more abundant in the AZoic
age than it has been since. Says Pro-
fessor Johnson: "Sulphide of gold
would have been produced by the ac-
ton OF sulphuretted hydrogen: hence
our auriferous Dirites lodes; while sill
cate of gold might have resulted from
combination of gold chlorides with
silicic acid; and thus the frequent
presence of gold in quartz is accounted
for" Yes. it is accounted for, but in a
very misty and unsatisfactory manner.
Professor LIE Conte throws a better
light on the theory by assuming that
mineralized waters flowed for long
III M
ally lmpregnating the ores with their
deposits. But if gold originally &C.
CURED as a mineral salt, when and
how it take a metallic form? ''Proba-
bly, answers Mr.. Johnson, lin just the
same manner as we now precipitate it
in the laboratory. With regard to that
found in quartz lodeS finely disseminaI-
ed through the gangue the change was
brought about thr - the same
agency which caused = SLIT acid
to solidify and take tbs Iorm in which
we now see it in the quartz -ins."
Professor Newberry thinks it probable
that the salt of gold was in the same
solution that deposited the pyrites.
This is a chemical possibility, but it
adds another complication to the
hydrothermal theory.
But the great. smooth nuggets of
gold, gathered from gravel deposits
and river channels, and never found in
quartz veins-how can they be ac-
counted for without falling back upon
the smelling process? Professor john
son argues that they are the results of
electro-chemical growth. He says there
are three gold salts in nature-silicate,
sulphide and chloride; that all these
are soluble in the presence of certain !
reagents, also found in nature, and |,
through which they may be deposited |!
in metallic form; hence, if gold was
formed in quartz reefs from solutions
in mineral waters, it follows that much /
of our alluvial gold-all that was not /
ground out of exposed veins by the |
elements-may have been similarly de-
rived. The argument is that, as mineral |
salts may be made to deposit them !
selves in a metallic state on any suit
able base, such as iron sulphide, for eX- |
ample. ii is reasonable TO presume that /
alluvial nuggets. beginning with a
pyritous base. owe their growth to sue
cessive DISPOSITIONS of films of metallic /
gold derived from it's salts. AS mug
get may be thus created in a laboratory |
the reference is not irrational that |
nature NAV have employed the same I
processes in creating the coarse colds
of the gravel deposits.
Yet the fact remains that all alluvial
gold nuggets have not been so formed.
Some of them found in California have
shown undeniable traces of having been
deposited in a molten condition. and
barren quartz is everywhere found in
the mineral belts of the Pacific coast
from which the gold seems to have
been distracted by fusion. 1t is true,
as contended. that a degree of heat
sufficient to fuse quartz would vola-
tilize the gold associated with il if ex-
posed to the air; but why should not
the cooling and hardening quartz, still
holding the gold in fusion have ex-
PEELED it by shrinkage, either in
globules, represented by the melon
seed gold of the old channels. or oc-
casionally in combined thousands of
them, constituting the great nuggets
Of the placer? The laboratory furnishes
proof that they may have been electro
chemically formed. and in some in
stances the nuggets themselves plainly
testify that they were created wholly
by fusion. Now, which was the pro-
cess? Nature did not employ them
both.
Concerning these conflicting theories
we venture no opinion. Violated law,
rs understood by man. crosses the path
IF both of them, and no alleged solu-
ion of the mystery of gold-making has
1 more solid foundation than that of a
;urrnise 1t may yet be discovered that
10Th fbanriac are wrong