Eaton S. Drone

“ All persons before registering or voting must take an oath never to countenance secession, to accept the civil equality of all men, and never to injure or countenance others in injuring any person on account of past or present support of the government of the United States, or the principle of equal rights, or affiliation with any political party. ”

“ The constitution requires the general assembly to maintain a system of free schools, and enforce the attendance of every child between 5 and 18 years of age for a term equivalent to three years, unless educated by other means. A free school must be kept in each school district for not less than three months during the year. The legislature is also required to establish and maintain a state university, with departments for instruction in teaching, agriculture, and natural sciences, as soon as the public school fund will permit. ”

“ Gold is very widely distributed in nature, and late researches have shown that it is present in appreciable quantities in the waters of the ocean, where it is associated with silver. According to Sonstadt, a ton of sea water yields by a simple chemical process a grain of gold; so that the quantity of the precious metal thus held in solution must be vastly greater than all the gold ever yet extracted from the earth. Gold is very generally diffused throughout the solid rocks, though only here and there accumulated in sufficient quantities to be economically available. ”

“ The richest and most extensive gold fields of Australia are in the colony of Victoria, where the area of the mining region is about 725 sq. m. This is divided into the mining districts of Ballarat, Beechworth, Sandhurst, Maryborough, Castlemaine, and Ararat. In Australia, as in California, gold is directly obtained from three distinct sources, viz.: shallow placers, deep diggings, and quartz veins. The estimated number of quartz veins in Victoria is about 2,000. ”

“ The enormous importation of gold and silver from the new world soon made up the deficiencies of the old mining regions, and, reducing the value of the metals in comparison with other products, caused mines which had before been successfully worked to be abandoned as unprofitable. ”

“ A thriving domestic commerce is carried on along the Mississippi, Arkansas, and other navigable streams of the state; and the traffic with the Indians on the western border is of considerable importance. Among the most striking natural curiosities in the state are the famous hot springs, beneficial to those suffering from the effects of mercury in the system, rheumatism, stiffness of the joints, &c. These springs are situated on a small tributary of the Washita, about 6 m. from that river, and 60 m. S. W. of Little Rock, in Hot Springs county. ”

“ Representatives must be male citizens of the United States not less than 21 years old, must have resided in the state for one year, and be qualified electors and residents of the districts from which they are elected. In addition to these qualifications senators must have attained the age of 25 years. No person holding a federal, state, or county office, with certain exceptions, is eligible as a member of the legislature. A majority of the members elected to each house is sufficient to pass a bill over the governor's veto. ”

“ By washing away the intermixed earthy and stony matters, the metal is obtained in dust, flattened scales, small lumps, and nuggets of all sizes and shapes, the larger pieces rounded by attrition, or ragged from the irregular forms they held in their original hard quartz matrix. Their size is commonly greater than that of gold found in the veins near by, a fact first explained by the late Oscar Lieber of South Carolina to be due to the solution of gold and its subsequent aggregation. ”

“ On the isthmus of Panama discoveries of images of gold in the graves of the aborigines point to the existence of productive mines in Chinqui, the localities of which are not now known. The gold is very generally alloyed with copper; some of it indeed is only 8-carat gold while in other samples the proportion is 23 carats. The gold of Mexico has been rather a secondary product of its argentiferous veins; but in Oajaca are true gold veins in the micaceous slates and gneiss. The silver ores which contain the gold are often argentiferous galena, the lead being the prevailing metal. ”

“ The general assembly is empowered to remove by a two-thirds vote of each house, approved by the governor, the political disabilities from any person who has in good faith returned to his allegiance to the federal government, except in the case of those who after the adoption of this constitution continued their opposition to the reconstruction measures of congress. A registration of voters is to be made before every general election. ”

“ It has been found that the lead of commerce, from whatever source derived, is seldom or never without a trace of gold. Gold is not, as has been erroneously supposed, confined to rocks of any one geological period. The gold of Colorado is found in veins with metallic sulphurets traversing crystalline rocks of eozoic age, and the same is the case in Ontario; while the gold-bearing strata of the Appalachians are in large part if not wholly of prepalæozoic age, as are those of the Alps and the Ural mountains. ”

“ Washing is the almost universal method of mechanical separation. In exploring for gold, the earth or pulverized rock suspected to contain it is washed on the blade of a shovel, or in an iron pan, wooden batea, or horn scoop. ”

“ When the gold is exceedingly fine, amalgamated copper plates are sometimes set in the sluices, and are considered as effective for saving fine gold as an equal surface of pure mercury, while they are both cheaper and more easily managed. Another arrangement for obtaining fine gold consists in allowing a current carrying suspended gold, sand, &c., to pass over tanned hides, laid with the hairs directed against the course of the stream, or over rough baize or blanket, such as is now manufactured for the purpose in California. ”

“ The greater portion of the gold obtained in Australia is from gravel deposits or placers similar to those in California. They occur in beds of streams, along the banks, and in ancient channels running transversely to the existing drainage of the country. Rich deposits are found under heavy accumulations of stratified tuffs and lavas overlaid with table mountains of basalt. The thickness of the placer deposits varies greatly in different places, ranging from 100 to 400 ft. ”

“ In washing, the dirt is shovelled into the hopper, and the workman ladles water upon it with one hand, rocking the cradle with the other. The sheet-iron bottom retains the larger stones; the disintegrated earth, passing through the riddle, falls upon the apron, which carries it to the head of the cradle box, whence it flows along the bottom and escapes at the lower end, leaving behind the riffle bars the gold, black sand, and heavier particles of gravel, which are cleaned up two or three times a day. ”

“ It consists essentially in stirring and shaking under water the contents of the vessels employed in such a way as to suspend the finer earthy particles and allow them to escape over the edge, while the gold, with the larger stones or lumps of clay, remains behind. The stones are removed with the fingers, and the lumps of clay are rubbed between the hands and reduced to a slime, the process being skilfully continued until nothing is left except gold and heavy black sand, usually titaniferous iron, which accompanies native gold in most localities and cannot be separated by washing. ”

“ It is said that extensive sources of gold have long been known in China, but that the working of the mines has been discontinued by the government in accordance with some of their financial theories. The gold-bearing formations of eastern Siberia are believed to extend into Chinese Tartary, and to connect with those of central and southern China. For several centuries Japan has ranked high for its production of gold, which constituted a chief article of the commerce carried on by the Portuguese and Dutch traders. ”

“ The gold found in Brazil, instead of being enclosed in regular veins, is disseminated in metalliferous beds. The rock formations are supposed to belong to the palæozoic period.—The total production of gold in the world has never been determined with more than an approximate degree of accuracy. There are no statistics showing the exact annual yield of the different gold-producing countries, and the amount produced has been subject to computations by different authorities, whose results have presented no little variance. ”

“ The metallic sulphurets are, however, in many cases, separated from other tailings by washing immediately after the first amalgamation of the ore, and various devices have been employed for the treatment of such concentrated pyrites, which is often the richest in gold of all the constituents of the vein stuff. Following the analogy of natural decomposition, it has been repeatedly attempted, by roasting the pyrites in reverberatory furnaces, to drive off the sulphur and oxidize the metallic bases, so as to obtain a product containing fine particles of free gold. ”

“ The Chilian mill consists of a stone or iron basin, around which one or two vertical wheels or runners, frequently of granite, are made to travel. It is generally considered less efficient for amalgamation and scarcely more so for crushing, while it is more expensive to construct than the arrastra. Jaw crushers, of which Blake's well known stone breaker is the type, are widely employed for the preliminary reduction of rock to a size suitable for rollers or stamp mills. Stamping is usually regarded as the most economical and efficient means of pulverizing the ore. ”

“ There are also extensive mines upon a large vein of mixed silver and gold ore on the island of Sado, off the N. W. coast, which is supposed to have furnished a large amount, but the facts regarding it are jealously guarded by the Japanese. Gold is largely used in Japan for gilding, for inlaying and overlaying metals, and for alloys with copper and silver of various colors and degrees of fineness. Gold has long been found in abundance in Borneo; according to Kloos, the metal occurs in varying quantities throughout the entire island. ”

“ Where skins are used, as in Brazil, they may be dried and beaten over a cloth, placed to receive the fallen particles. Sluice washing is generally carried on during the day only; but when water is abundant and cheap, the work may be continued throughout the whole twenty-four hours. The sluices are cleaned up once a week, or more seldom, according to the rate at which gold and amalgam accumulate. ”

“ The executive power is vested in a governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, attorney general, and superintendent of public instruction, who are chosen by the people for a term of four years. ”

“ In Sennaar and southern Abyssinia gold occurs in placer deposits and in quartz veins traversing granite, gneiss, and chloritic slates. The greatest portion of the gold brought to the coast is from the fields of Bambook, south of the Senegal, the most important mines in Africa. There is a gold district in Kordofan on the upper Nile, between Darfoor and Abyssinia, and it is obtained in small quantities opposite Madagascar. A few years ago the annual production of Africa was estimated by Birkmyre at 4,000 lbs., valued at about $900,000. ”

“ Rising from the valley, the soil becomes less productive, and in many places will not repay cultivation; while large portions of the uplands, particularly in the northern part of the state, produce good crops of wheat and other gram, as well as the best of apples, and are well adapted to grazing. The uplands are largely interspersed with rolling prairies, which are generally well watered, though Grand prairie, 90 m. long and 30 broad, situated between Arkansas and White rivers, is an exception, being almost entirely without water. ”

“ Ground sluices are natural gullies, answering the purpose of wooden sluices in localities where water is abundant for short periods only, and the construction of permanent sluices would not be judicious. In river mining, the current of a stream is turned aside, and sluices are erected in its bed for washing the dirt there accumulated. ”

“ Water for sluicing operations is frequently brought from great distances through canals, ditches, or flumes, the proprietors of which sell the water to miners at so much the miners' inch, a miners' inch being in most localities the quantity flowing in a given time through an aperture one inch square under a head of six inches.—The celebrated hydraulic process, invented in Placer co., Cal., in 1852, consists in washing down the whole surface and underlying mass of auriferous deposits, preparatory to sluicing. ”

“ The course of the veins is by no means uniform; they run in various directions, and are often tortuous as well as displaced by faults. Their most common general bearing is N. E. and S. W., with a dip toward the N. W. Veins in which the quartz gangue is highly crystalline commonly abound in iron pyrites; as they are explored, pyritous copper is generally met with at some depth. In most instances the gold diminishes with the increase of copper, and the latter metal not proving abundant enough to pay expenses, the mines are at last abandoned. Gold is said to have been discovered in Cabarrus co. ”