_Quarrying Quartz._--The quarrying of quartz rock differs little from the quarrying of other metalliferous vein-stones. The lode descends steeply, and the excavation must follow its course. Sometimes the quartz is so soft that it may easily be loosened with the pick. The harder rock is blasted. Soft quartz is that which is penetrated by numerous cavities, though the lumps between the cavities may be very hard. Some quartz on exposure to the air crumbles into sand, though hard when first taken from the vein. In narrow lodes, some of the wall-rock must be cut away to get room for the workmen. In wide lodes, that part of the vein-stone which does not pay is left. Sometimes the gold from the lode penetrates a little way into the foot-wall, and in that case the quarrying must extend beyond the vein stone. The quartz loosened in the vein, must either be hoisted perpendicularly in a bucket with a windlass, or be hauled out through a tunnel. The common method is to hoist the rock with a windlass. Most of the veins are in such places that shafts are more easily dug than tunnels. After the excavation has extended twenty or thirty feet below the surface, it is usual to dig a perpendicular shaft, so as to strike the vein sixty or seventy feet below the surface, and from this point the miner or "drifter" works upward, and as he loosens the rock it falls to the bottom of the shaft, where it is put in the bucket to be hoisted to the surface. Our quartz mines are generally in dry hills, so that they are not troubled much by water; but there are a few shafts where steam-pumps are constantly at work to carry off the water. Occasionally the miners find small quantities of auriferous quartz which are so easily broken up, and the pieces of gold in which are so coarse, that after the rock has been pounded a little in a mortar, the metal can easily be picked out with the fingers. _Arastra._--Quartz is pulverized either in an arastra, or Chilean mill, or by stamps.