the United States is that of the Messrs. Ames, at Chicopee, Mass. The equestrian statue of Washington, in Union square, New York, is one of their most succes-ful productions. The French bronze contains 2 parts of tin, 1 of lead, 6 of zinc, and 91 of copper. Bell-metal is a bronze usually consisting of 7 parts of copper and 22 of tin. The largest bell in the country, that formerly on the City Hall, in New York, weighs 23,000 pounds, and was cast in Boston. The largest number of bells is probably produced at the foundry of the Messrs. Meneely, at Troy, N. Y. The Chinese gong is now an American manufacture, composed of bell-metal, which, after being cast, is forged under the hammer, between two disks of iron. The casting is made malleable by plunging, while hot, into cold water.

As with zinc, copper forms an alloy made to imitate gold, so with tin and nickel it forms a combination resembling silver, known as German silver. The proportions of the metals are 8 parts of copper to either 3 or 4 each of the two other metals. This is used in the manufacture of spoons, forks, and other utensils, and instead of brass in various instruments. It is plated with silver, and is as beautiful as the genuine silver.

CHAPTER III.

GOLD.

ALTHOUGH the discovery of gold mines. was the chief motive that led to the settlement of the American continent, those of the United States appear to have escaped notice until the present century. The only exception to this may be in the discovery made by some Europeans of the gold region of northern Georgia at a period long antecedent to the occupation of this district by the whites. Of this fact no written record is preserved; but in working the deposit mines of the Nacoochee valley, in Habersham county, there were discovered, about the year 1842, various utensils and vestiges of huts, which evidently had been constructed by civilized men, and had been buried there several centuries. It is supposed they belonged to De Soto's party, which passed through this region in the sixteenth century on their exploring expedition from Florida to the Mississippi river. The earlier historians hardly mention gold as even being supposed to exist in the colonies. Salmon, in the third volume of his "Modern History," 1746, merely alludes to a gold mine in Virginia, which of late "had made much Another alloy of copper and tin is the noise," but does not even name the locality, telescope or speculum metal, which consists and evidently attaches no importance to it. of about one-third tin and two-thirds copper. In Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia" mention It is of a steel-white color, very hard and is made of the discovery of a piece of gold brittle, and susceptible of a high polish, of 17 dwts. near the Rappahannock. In which is not soon tarnished, qualities that 1799, as mentioned by Wheeler in his "Hiscause it to be used for the mirrors of tele-tory of North Carolina," a son of Conrad scopes. Reed picked up a piece of gold as large as small smoothing iron from the bed of a brook on his father's farm, in Cabarrus county, and its value not being known it was kept for several years in the house to hold the door open, and was then sold to a silversmith for $3.50. In Drayton's "View of South Carolina," 1802, the metal is stated Among the later alloys of copper, is what to have been found on Paris Mountain, in is called oroide of gold, which in its best Greenville district. About this time it bequalities consists of pure copper, 100 parts; gan to be met with in considerable lumps in zinc or tin, 17 parts; magnesia, 6 parts; sal- Cabarrus county, N. C., and not long afterammonia, 0.5 parts; quicklime, 0.125 parts; ward in Montgomery and Anson counties. tartar of commerce, 9 parts. Aluminium At Reed's mine, in Cabarrus, the discovery Bronze 90 parts copper and 10 of aluminium. by a negro of a lump weighing 28 lbs. avoirThere are several alloys closely imitating dupois, near the same stream already referred silver in which copper is the largest constit- to, led to increased activity in exploring the uent. One consists of 70 parts copper, 20 nickel, 5 zinc, and 4 cadnium. Minargent consists of 100 parts copper, 70 nickel, 5 tungsten, and 1 aluminium.

Copper is largely used in the coinage, pure in the cent, combined with nickel in the three and five cent pieces, and as an alloy in the silver and gold pieces. Copper is also in demand both for electro-plating purposes and for electrotype plates, which have almost superseded the old stereotype plates.

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gravelly deposits along the courses of the brooks and rivers of this region, and numerous new localities of the metal were rapidly discovered. A much larger proportion of

sluice washing, which has proved highly successful in California, gives encouragement that these mines may again soon became as productive as before.

The rock formations of the United States, in which gold mines are worked, follow the range of the Appalachians, and are productive chiefly along their eastern side in a belt of country sometimes attaining a width of 75 miles, as along the southern part of North Carolina, and in Georgia in two distinct belts which are separated by a district of formations unproductive in gold. The extreme northern gold mines on this range are in Canada East, upon the Chaudiere river and its tributaries, the Du Loup and the Touffe des Pins. In 1851 and 1852, deposits were worked upon these streams, and about 1,900 dwts. were collected - found among the gravel which lay in the crevices formed by the ragged edges of the upturned argillaceous and talcose slates. The pieces were all small, only one weighing as much as 4 ounces. The returns were not sufficient to cover the outlays, and the working was consequently abandoned.

gold was collected, during these earlier workings, in coarse lumps than in the operations of later times-pieces of metal of one to several pounds weight being often found. Before the year 1820, as stated in Bruce's Mineralogical Journal (vol. i., p. 125), the quantity of American gold received at the mint at Philadelphia amounted to $43,689. All of this was from North Carolina. . In 1827 there had been received from the same source $110,000. But besides this amount, a considerable proportion of the gold product was consumed by jewellers, who paid a better price than was received from the mint, and was retained by the banks, in which it was deposited. It also circulated to some extent as a medium of exchange in the mining region, being carried about in quills, and received by the merchants usually at the rate of ninety cents a dwt. The total product of the mines must, therefore, have been much larger than appears from the mint returns. In 1829, Virginia and South Carolina began to appear as gold-producing states -there being deposited in the mint from the former gold to the value of $2,500, and from the latter of $3,500. The same year The next localities on the range toward the rich gold deposits of northern Georgia the south which have furnished gold are in were discovered, and suddenly became very Vermont, on the western border of Windproductive, so that the receipts at the mint sor county, in the towns of Bridgewater and from this state for the year 1830 amounted Plymouth. At Newfane, in Windham county, to $212,000. Gold mining had now become a piece of gold was found in 1826, which an established branch of the productive in- weighed 8 oz.; but the only successful atdustry of the states, and as its importance tempts to work the deposits were comincreased, the necessity was felt of the estab-menced in 1859, in Windsor county, and lishment of branch mints in the mining have since been prosecuted to limited exregion. One was constructed by act of Con- tent. At Bridgewater, the gold has been gress at Dahlonega, Lumpkin county, Geor- found in place, in a quartz vein, associated gia, and another at Charlotte, Mecklenburg with galena, and pyritous copper, and iron. county, N. C.; and both commenced coining gold in 1838. From the irregular manner in which the gold deposits were worked, and their uncertain yield, the annual production of the mines was very variable. In a single year the mint at Dahlonega received and coined gold to the value of $600,000; and until the discovery of the California gold mines, the American production was estimated to average annually about $100,000. It was, however, gradually declining in importance from the year 1845; and of late years has dwindled away, so as not to amount to enough for the support of the branch mints, the abolition of which by act of Congress was generally looked for in 1857 and 1858. The late introduction at the mines of North Carolina and Georgia of the hydraulic and

It has not proved sufficiently rich to work. Through western Massachusetts and Connecticut, and the south-east part of New York, and through New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the talcose and argillaceous slates, and the other rocks of the gold belt, appear to be unproductive in this metal, a little gold only having been met with in some of the ores worked for lead and copper in Lancaster county, near the borders of Maryland. Specimens of quartz rich in gold have been found in Montgomery county, in the lastnamed state; but no mine has been worked there.

In Virginia the deposit mines of Louisa county especially were very productive even in 1833, and they had not been worked long before rich veins were found, and operations

By this operation, as described in the text, hills of loose materials or of decomposed slates and other rocks containing gold, are washed down, and the earthy matters are swept away through the sluices made either of wooden troughs or by excavating channels in the bed-rock. In these the coarse gold is caught against the bars placed at intervals across the sluices. This is a purely Californian method, and has proved so effectual in collecting the little gold buried in large bodies of earth, that it is now generally adopted in other gold regions in which the conditions are favorable for its practice.

This represents a common method of reaching beds of rich ores that lie at considerable depths below the surface, by which the labor of removing the superficial deposits is avoided. Veins of ores, whether lying at a steep or gentle inclination, are often explored by such tunnels driven in upon their course. The sides and roof may be protected or not, as the ground is soft or solid, by timbering.

At the outside of the tunnel below the railroad track is the machine called the "long tom," a shallow trough, ten to twenty feet long, and about sixteen inches wide. The lower end, which turns up gently from the plane of the bottom, is shod with iron and perforated with holes. The water from the mine is turned on the upper end, and flows up this slope and through the holes, carrying with it the finer mud and sand which are continually thrown into the tom. One man at the lower end keeps the mud in motion and removes the coarse lumps. Under the lower end of the tom is placed a "riffle box," in which mercury may be used to advantage if the gold is in fine particles.

The above cut represents a rocker of unusual dimensions, which has been introduced in some places in California, and is employed particularly for auriferous deposits in which the gold is in too fine particles to be caught in the long tom. It is slightly inclined, and is rocked by one man while the others collect the gravel and throw it upon the perforated iron plate. Across the bottom of the trough are placed "riffle bars," and behind each one of these some mercury. The fine particles of gold coming in contact with this are caught and retained in the form of amalgam. The coarse gravel falls off the lower end of the plate, while the fine mud and sand are washed by the water through the holes in the plate.