Lodes lying between two different kinds of rock, are usually richer than those which have the same kind of rock on both sides. Thus it is said that the richest veins of auriferous quartz in California, have been discovered at the intersection of trap and serpentine, and the richest places in veins are where they cross from one kind of bed-rock into another. The richest part of a lode of auriferous quartz is almost invariably on the lower side of the vein, near the foot-wall. All these are facts to be remembered by the prospector as a guide, and an assistance to him in his search for a rich gold-bearing vein. If the lode is covered with earthy matter, he may sometimes trace its course by the difference in the color of the dirt and stones over it from that elsewhere. When the prospector finds dirt and stones on a vein, evidently disintegrated portions of it, he should wash some of the dirt in a pan, and if he finds no gold, there is a strong presumption that the vein is barren. _Prospecting Quartz Rock._--After finding a gold-bearing vein, the question arises whether it will pay. Great sums are lost in gold-mining countries by injudicious investments in mills and machinery to work the auriferous rock, and persons going into the business should be particularly careful not to commit this great error. The business of quartz mining has great profits, but also great pecuniary dangers connected with it. It is rarely that all the rock of a vein will pay for working. In some lodes, the vein-stone will average one hundred dollars to the ton, for all the stone found in a certain part of the lode, but beyond that the rock may be poor or worthless. Picked specimens may be worth several thousand dollars to the ton, but perhaps not more than a ton of such specimens has been obtained in the best lode ever opened in the state. The most profitable lodes are those which have a large supply of rock, easily to be obtained, and all of it yielding something above the cost of working. The common method of ascertaining whether rock will pay, is to pulverize a little of it and wash it in a horn spoon. In taking out the quartz rock in large lodes, it is important to take out only that which will pay, and to determine this, the superintendent of the quarry-men must occasionally test the vein-stone. He takes several little pieces of it, average specimens, places them on a hard, smooth, flat stone, about a foot square, on which he crushes them with a stone muller four inches square, and then by rubbing with the muller he reduces them to a fine powder. He has a horn spoon, made of a large ox-horn, with a bowl about three inches wide, and eight inches long, being merely one-half of the horn in its natural shape. With this spoon he washes out the powder in water, and if he does not find a speck of gold or a "color," as it is called, in a pound of the rock, he infers that it will not pay. The three principal quartz mines in the state are those of Fremont in Mariposa county, of