"The rivers, in forming their channels, or breaking their way through the hills, have come in contact with the quartz containing the gold veins, and by constant attrition cut the gold into fine flakes and dust, and it is found among the sand and gravel of their beds at those places where the swiftness of the current reduces it, in the dry season, to the narrowest possible limits, and where a wide margin is, consequently, left on each side, over which the water rushes, during the wet season, with great force. "As the velocity of some streams is greater than that of others, so is the gold found in fine or coarse particles, apparently corresponding to the degree of attrition to which it has been exposed. The water from the hills and upper valleys, in finding its way to the river, has cut deep ravines, and, wherever it has come in contact with the quartz, has dissolved or crumbled it in pieces. "In the dry season, these channels are mostly without water, and gold is found in the beds and margins of many of them in large quantities, but in a much coarser state than in the rivers; owing, undoubtedly, to the moderate flow and temporary continuance of the current, which has reduced it to smooth shapes, not unlike pebbles, but has not had sufficient force to cut it into flakes or dust. "The dry diggings are places where quartz containing gold has cropped out, and been disintegrated, crumbled to fragments, pebbles, and dust, by the action of water and the atmosphere. The gold has been left as it was made, in all imaginable shapes; in pieces of all sizes, from one grain to several pounds in weight. The evidences that it was created in combination with quartz are too numerous and striking to admit of doubt or cavil. _They are found in combination in large quantities._ "A very large proportion of the pieces of gold found in these situations have more or less quartz adhering to them. In many specimens, they are so combined they cannot be separated without reducing the whole mass to powder, and subjecting it to the action of quicksilver. "This gold, not having been exposed to the attrition of a strong current of water, retains, in a great degree, its original conformation. "These diggings, in some places, spread over valleys of considerable extent, which have the appearance of an alluvion, formed by washings from the adjoining hills, of decomposed quartz and slate earth, and vegetable matter. "In addition to these facts, it is, beyond doubt, true that several vein-mines have been discovered in the quartz, from which numerous specimens have been taken, showing the minute connection between the gold and the rock, and indicating a value hitherto unknown in gold-mining. "These veins do not present the appearance of places where gold may have been lodged by some violent eruption. It is combined with the quartz, in all imaginable forms and degrees of richness.