fort's foundry, opposite the Gas Works, and if willing to patent it. Mr. Graham will be glad to treat with him.

Hoping you will give this communication a place in your Publication, I am, sir, very respectfully, &c.

ALEX J. GRAHAM.

ARTICLE VII.

(From the U. S. Mining Journal.)

ON THE DECOMPOSITION OF ROCKS, AND THE RE-COM-
POSITION OF THEIR METALLIC CONSTITUENTS.
BY JOHN CALVERT, ESQ.

The large quantity of gold found in the detritus of Australia, California and other acknowledged gold regions, has called forth much speculation from many scientific minds as to the origin of so much alluvial gold, when the sources from which it appeared to emanate (viz., the quartz veins,) have so generally failed to produce it on being entered into or worked below the surface, thereby causing so much disappointment to gold mining speculations, the promoters thinking they had only to rip open the goose to ensure to themselves a plentiful harvest of golden eggs. The delusions and failures of gold quartz companies are such acknowledged facts, that it will be unnecessary for me to enter upon that part of the subject here. The origin or development of gold may be thus classified,-viz.:

1. When precipitation takes place simultaneously with the intrusion and upheaval of the palaeozoic formation.

2. An after-precipitation, through the electric and atmospheric decomposition of the various rocks and metalliferous formations.

But a small portion of the gold we use owes its origin to the first circumstances; and gold having a surface determination, it will always precipitate itself there, and therefore would long ago have been an extinct metal in inhabited countries, were it not for the fact of the after precipitation and development which is always going on wherever the matrix containing it is thrown under circumstances sufficiently kind to render the decomposition of the matrix favourable to the re-composition of the gold it may contain.

By far the greater portion of the gold we obtain at the various diggings and mines, ows its relation and development to this after-precipitation. The vast granite ranges in Australia and other places, the flanks of which are so constantly undergoing decomposition, and keeping up the supply of detritus and sand in the rivers and creeks which flow from them, are not found to contain any gold at the head of the said creek, or in the granite detritus, until it has been washed into hollows, and beds of creeks and rivers, in company with an accumulation of organic matter; then, when sufficient moisture, the batterypower is active enough to precipitate the gold in nodules of various

sizes, just in the same way that flint forms in chalk, or iron in bogs. An atmospheric decomposition of granite, containing a very small quantity of any other metal, is not sufficient to develope the gold it contains; but in the case of many of the various metallic ores, when in their combination exists sufficient of the opposing metal to create a self-acting battery, they will, after being exposed to a succession of winters' rain and summers' heat, be decomposed, and the gold and other metals it contains will he found to have re-composed themselves in other chemical states. But in many cases of rapid decomposition the waste of such a tender electric metal as gold will be very great, and more especially when decomposed by heat.

Nature's workings are beautiful, but in many instances very slow. If we would work gold on a large scale, we must seek it in other forms than its precipitated or metallic state; or the alternative will be to vigilantly search for the comparatively small quantity precipitated, and having worked that, wait patiently for some centuries whilst Nature accumulates more. I have watched the decomposition of rocks in many countries, have studied this subject the greater part of my lifetime, and have long since fallen into all the blunders and errors that so singularly characterise the gold-seeker's career, and which seem to so engross the public mind at present.

Whilst on my geological researches in Australia, in 1846, I discovered a boulder of granite, partially embedded in rich black soil, at the side of a river; it seemed as though it had been undisturbed for many years, it was in a state of decomposition. On the under side it was mostly decomposed, and tinged with the oxide of iron; I could pick that part to pieces with my fingers; there were visible nodules of gold in all that portion that yielded to my fingers; there was no gold visible in the upper portion. This was a problem set me by Nature, which I toiled for many weeks and months to solve; many were the experiments and methods I fruitlessly tried. I could decompose the upper portion of that block of granite, but the gold was wanting. some time I travelled back to the spot from which I had obtained it, carefully watched the chemical and electric conditions under which it had there been acted upon. I returned, tried fresh experiments, and succeeded in decomposing a piece of the upper portion of the granite block; the only difference was, that the grains of gold obtained were smaller than those formed by the natural process. Ever since that time I have been able to perform the same experiment successfully upon rocks and ores, providing they contained any.

Now, as the great and Almighty Providence has so generously seen fit to invest in man the power to assist and force so many of Na-ture's productions, may it not likewise be within his scope to forestall Nature's decomposition of the vast masses she so slowly attacks, and by artificial means to perform that in a week or month which otherwise would take years or centuries?

As to the exact geological period at which the paleozoic rocks became severally charged with gold, and under what electric law and then existing condition of pularity it was dispelled and distributed, is beyond the limits of this brief paper to discuss; sufficient for my present subject that it has been found locally distributed in the older form

ations, and in the debris accumulated from them, over the whole world, wherever it has been looked for. All the largest masses of gold that have yet been found show undoubted proofs of having emanated from various quartz veins, and to have been mere surface incrustations belonging to those veins.

I have often stated that gold has a surface determination, and I believe all that found its way to the surface, simultaneously with the formations being charged, providing the temperature and magnetic force were congenial, immediately precipitated itself there.

I divided my subject into two classes:

1. When precipitation takes place simultaneously with the intrusion and upheaval of the paleozoic formation.

2. An after-precipitation, through the electric and atmospheric decomposition of the various rocks and metalliferous formations.

I do not mean to convey the idea that all the ancient intruded rocks have charged the surrounding formations with gold; that gold may now be found in some of the oldest granites is a fact beyond doubt, but I believe its owes its presence there to some of the youngest and most recent intrusions and disturbances-patches and portions only of the surrounding rocks become charged; in many instances boulders of granite that have traveled from their original position contain none, whilst the mountain mass, from which they seem to have been torn, is largely charged with it. For instance, take the districts of Maneroo and Gipp's Land, in Australia, where you will find scattered over their extensive plains two distinct classes of boulders, both of which seem to have traveled many miles, and in some instances both seem to have arrived at pretty nearly the same place, but evidently by different routes, and most certainly at distinct and widely intervening periods of time. The oldest boulders are mostly polished, and some appear much ground, and are all in good preservation: in no one instance did they contain any gold when operated upon by my decomposing process, when tracing them to their apparent original source, viz.: rocks forming part of the Snowy Mountain range, I found Nature was making great inroads upon them by rapid decomposition, but upon subjecting a portion of the solid rock to my process, it gave me gold. I likewise washed some of the debris from the bottom of a creek close by, from which I obtained little angular nodules of gold. As to the more recent boulders, most of those I tried contained gold. Many of these were under various stages of decomposition, and most likely owed their boulder origin to the decomposition of the external mass, and the spherical flakes which the frost is daily splitting off from the angular rocks that are constantly breaking away from the mountains from which they have been drifted.

When gold is found accompanying magnetic iron, wolfram, the surface oxides of tin or iron, ferruginous earths and clays, it will always be in its metallic state. Iron, antimony, blende, and several other opposite metals, will often precipitate gold in veins below the surface, provided there is some flookan, or other moist ground, accompanying the vein, to allow of a sufficient strength of electric current to throw down the metal.

Mercury will never touch gold in any other than its metallic state, and wherever mercury will obtain gold, it may likewise be obtained

by careful washing: there is no mystery in the subject, for if you have metallic gold in your ores it is one of the simplest matters to extract it.

As to roasting the ores, that is one way of getting rid of sulphur, arsenic, bismuth, and other volatile substances, so frequently found associated with gold; but it is likewise a capital mode of dissipating a great portion of the gold, if not all, and may never be performed with impunity, unless the gold is in the form of pure grains or strings. In nearly all cases where the gold is non-metallic, and even where it exists in its delicate and almost invisible feathery form, interlacing itself with some of the most treacherously volatile metals, it would be indiscrete to subject the ore to so violent an electric decomposition, as it would most certainly have to undergo in the calciming or roasting furnace.

I am sorry to see the subject of the chemical conditions and arrangements under which gold may be volatilised at a low temperature so little understood. The rocks and formations into which gold has been charged in its most subtle and hidden form are many of the limestones, shales, talcose, chloritic and other shists, quartz, gneiss, granites, and many of the formations, ranging from the carboniferous series downwards. Granites that have not been re-disturbed will never contain any; the syenites, and other recent hornblendic intrusions seem to have been the most prolific in charging their surrounding formations with gold. I have frequently found in the red surface earth near trapean rocks, and most veins carrying sulphur, that seem to be in any way distorted by it, wil, with very few exceptions, con'ain gold in one or other of its delicate chemical forms.

[From the Placer Times & Transcript.] LIFE AMONG THE MORMONS.

Mr. Wallace, the editor of the Los Angelos Star, writes as follows concerning this singular people whom he has recently visited at the stronghold in the County of San Bernardino, in this State. Outsiders who are possessed with anything like a spirit of candor, universally give them the name of having the best regulated, energetic, and honest communities that exist in any country, with the exception perhaps, of one practice of very doubtful mority, which is allowed, and by some of the more fanatical among "them, even encouraged. Those who have had the misery of being put through a course of sprouts by some of those ingenious instruments of torture, San Francisco lawyers and Courts, will fully apprecaite the good sense and sound judgment they display in starving such institutions out of their midst; this alone should excuse any amount of folly they might be guilty of in other respects.

It is not yet three years since the Mormons settled in San Bernardino. Then it was a mere range for cattle; but by organized industry and well directed labor, it has now become one of the most important and fruitful portions of the State. And the system

which prevails among them, in political matters, of voting one way - of uttering their sentiments as by the voice of one man, will, with their increasing numbers, give them great power. They are neither Whigs nor Democrats, and their practice is to go for their friends. By their unity in this respect, they are destined, in close contests, to control elections.

After a first visit among them, one is struck with the stillness and apparent dullness o! the place; but this arises from the order of labor, which their system imposes upon every member. There are no idlers. Every one must produce according to his capacity. And all their labors go on in the most systematic manner. Some are ditching for the irrigation of the land; some are cutting timber in the mountains; others are hauling it to the plain; some are looking after stock; some are building; some trading. Every one doing something, with a view to permanent utility. Their property is not held in common, but the Church and each individual is benefitted by the labors of all the rest. So far as industry in the development of the resources of their lands is concerned, there is not a community in the State that can compare with them.

The ranch is situated at the mouth of the Cajon Pass, and all the travel hence to Salt Lake passes through the city. In the Cajon there is abundance of water for mills and for irrigation, and it is carried over the bottom lands in every direction, and will be brought through every street of the new city.

The old fort, with its ungainly proportions, will soon be abandoned. The new city, which is located a little to the east of it, is surveyed, and the lots are now offered for sale at an average price of one hundred dollars. There are already two or three handsome buildings erected, and several more are in progress. Bishop Crosby is about erecting a large hotel, which he means shall be an ornament to the city.

Their wheat crop at present is in fine condition, and if the season continues favorable, they will be able to supply a large proportion of the flour needed in this market. Last year they lost much of their wheat from rust, but their faith is strong that the blight will not now come near them.

The Mormons never go to law, and it is very evident that they do not wish any outsider to come among them for that purpose. They have an aversion for lawyers as stirrers up of litigation. No case has ever yet come before the State courts, in which the Mormons were parties. All their differences are settled in the "Bishop's Court," where each party choses a referee, and their decision is final. They have no jail, and when they find a criminal, they put him in chains and set him to ditching or some other public improvement. It does a man no good, they say, to confine him; besides, confinement is an expense to the community, and they cannot afford to support any man in idleness. The term of the District Court was held there on Monday; but the clerk being absent,