] washed the sands and examined the rocks even beyond
the Falls of Barraconda. After having often been deceived, as has occurred
to many prospectors since his day, he determined that gold never occurs in
low fertile wooded lands, but in naked and barren hills, which embed it in
their reddish ferruginous soil. Hence it was long and erroneously
determined that bare rocks in the neighbourhood of shallow alluvia
characterise rich placers, and that the wealthiest mining-regions are poor
and stunted in vegetation. California and Australia, the Gold Coast and
South Africa, are instances of the contrary. Wasa, however, confirms the
old opinion that the strata traversed by lodes determine the predominating
metal; as quartz produces gold; hard blue slate, lead; limestone,
green-stone and porphyry, copper; and granite, tin. [Footnote: Page 17, _A
Treatise on Metalliferous Minerals and Mining_, by D. C. Davies. London,
Crosby and Co., 1881. The volume is handy and useful to explorers.]
After twenty days' labour Jobson succeeded in extracting 12 lbs. from a
single site. He declares that at length he 'arrived at the mouth of the
mine itself, and found gold in such abundance as surprised him with joy
and admiration.
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