The generally smooth appearance of alleged alluvial gold is adduced as an argument in favour of its having been carried by water from its original place of deposit, and thus in transit become waterworn; while some go so far as to say that it was shot out of the reefs in a molten state. The latter idea has been already disposed of, but if not, it may be dismissed with the statement that the heat which would melt silica in the masses met with in lodes would sublimate any gold contained, and dissipate it, not in nuggets but in fumes. With regard to the assumed waterworn appearance of alluvial gold, I have examined with the microscope the smooth surface of more than one apparently waterworn nugget, and found that it was not scratched and abraded, as would have been the case had it been really waterworn, but that it presented the same appearance, though infinitely finer in grain, as the surface of a piece of metal fresh from the electrical plating-bath. Let us then try if we cannot suggest, if not a complete answer to the many perplexing problems which trouble the alluvial miner, at least a theory that will bear investigation, and by the application of which many apparent paradoxes may be explained. While admitting that certain alluvial gold has been ground out of its siliceous matrix, and distributed and re-collected by water action, we may inquire what would be the result if we extend the experiment of the boy and knife, or the electro-metallurgical bath to alluvial drifts, and show that it is not only possible, but almost certain, that similar action has obtained, and may now be occurring.