And it is often found in beds of loose gravel, alluvial deposits, as they are termed. In such cases the gold is to be had simply for the picking up. Sometimes a lucky find occurs in the form of a big nugget, but more often the metal lies in tiny grains at long distances apart, so that a ton of gravel has to be sorted over to find a paltry ounce or so of gold. Yet so desired is it that gold will always fetch its price, and an ounce to the ton (even less) is sometimes worth getting. But in the early history of the world there were possibly particularly generous deposits with plenty of gold in good-sized pieces, and such would be quickly discovered and worked by primitive man. No doubt the chieftains of those days took much, if not all, of the gold that their people found, and more powerful chiefs and kings would, in turn, either by force or in trade, take it from the weaker, so that it is not surprising to learn that some of the mighty kings and potentates of long ago were well supplied with gold. Yet there are few things more useless. Its value in the first instance was probably entirely due to its beautiful colour, and the fact that it does not easily tarnish. For this reason, coupled with the fact that it was by no means plentiful, men liked to deck themselves with it, not only adding to their "beauty" by so doing, but advertising to their fellows the fact that they were men of wealth, men who possessed what few others had, or at all events possessed it more abundantly. These three basic facts about gold, its beauty, its freedom from deterioration and its comparative scarcity, give it its peculiar status among the commodities of commerce, in that for it, and for it alone, there is a continuous and universal demand. No gold-mining company ever shut down its properties because of the falling off in the demand for gold. No one ever had to hawk gold about to find a purchaser; it is always saleable.