The daily Alaskan., 1914-09-11
OF METALS
Theories as to How the
 Ores Are Formed.
NATURE HIDES THE SECRET.

Wrest lE FTOm Els'g SuN SSS'0S'S'0
 and Mineralogists Are as Yet Unable
 to Agree Upon the Process.
 You have read of that legendary h. alan who while chasing game, son a Bolivian mountain side seized q bush to prevent himself from falling, and, the bush being pulled loose from its scanty hold on the rocks, he saw its crooked roots- grasping masses or gIcuming white ore and thus became the dlscoverer of the famous silver mines of Potosi.
 sYou have also read, perhaps with l itching fingers, of prospectors picking up nuggets of gold worth thousand dollars each or opening veins of quartz all shot through with heavy threads of the yellow metal.
 Ton bnOw that ores of gold and silver or of any other precious or use full metal are not to be found in every body's back yard. but must be sought for in certain favored parts of the 1 earth.
 But has yCur intelligent curiosity ever 1 led you to inquire how those ores came ! to be where they are and nowhere else? Have you ever wondered what makes a gold nugget:
 Possibly you think that gold and other metals grow somewhat as fruits do-in soils and climates that are spe- riullv suited to th.m We'll there is considerable truth in llaJ Hca. and the word grow k. in one sense. sur nriSiug,y applicable to surh deposits. i Rnt there is a great drul more in the matter lnau you womd imagine. apd on mo subject nas s,iyucr tough, more Lattlrs royal lh:.u ou this of tse origin Dr mrtatI.c ores. think that there are some gru,cgi.5s wh1 would rather find out this secret to th' very bottom than discover the richest Iolc that the ribs of thp earth contain Il they could do both chat would be perfection, and we must not forget that knowledge is power.
 | Until about 100 years ago everybody who thought about it at all believed that veins of precious ore were dis triJuted under the influence of the planets. At that time astrology held the place of science.
 Finally George AgricoA. a German mineralogist. who lived about the time ! when the gold and silver of Mexico ! and Peru were making spain the tem- porary mistress of the world, hit-Gpon theory which came in substance very near the truth. He taught that water, penetrating into the earth and 1ccom- ing heated. took up scattered minerals | in solution and atterward deposited them as ores iu cavities in the rocks The mineral solutions he called the earth's juices"
 A couple of hundred years later the 1 German gc0logiSt Werner set forth q view that became very famous under the name of the "Neptuuist theory from Neptune. the god Of the sea. Werner's idea was that as the earth cooled down from the primcva, ncbul0 out of which it was formed it was en- vel0ped in universal. hot ocean, hold ling in solution aH kinds of minerals, and that when the rocky crust Was formed the water leaking down into 1t deposited its metallic contents by chemical precipitation in veins and lodcs wherever the circumstances were ! favorable
 But a hundred years ago the Nep turtist theory, which had swept every thing before it in the minds of men of science. met its Waterloo at the hands of Hutton, the Scottish geoIo- rfst. with his "Pmtouic" thesry from Pluto. the god of the internal rcgiousl. Uutton's idea was that the materials which flr the metallic veins were melt ed by heat and rorciby injected into the clefts and Assures of the strata from below.
 The "Neptunists' and "pHtonists' had hard fight, with the latter hold ing the upper hand, until their theory had assumed a kind of compromise form. with water again playing the principal role. The American geoIO- gist Van uise. is the author of one of the latest theories, according to which mpteoric water tcondeuscd atmospheric vapor) peuetratcs deep into the calth's crust. and, with steadily increasing temperature, takes up mineral matter | into solution. Spreading, as it gets deePer. the water reaches larger open ings in the rocky crust, in which it ascends. with decreasing temperature and pressure.
 There it deposits the ores, whose ma
 terials it has collected in its wander ings and carried along in solution.
 But this is not the last word, and m
 recent years there has been a partial reaction toward the Plutonist theory, Besides. a great deal seems to depend uDon the nature of the ore whose ori- gin is in guestion.-Garrctt ?. Seryiss a In New York Journal.
 He Knew.
 Nrs.-Oh. Jack. Dolly told me the 2 most exciting secret and made me