We at once recognized the value of this discovery when, reaching the tents, we examined the quartz, and found it seamed and pitted with veins and geodes containing Colorado, earthy and crumbling metallic dust, chlorure, iodure, and bromure of silver, with various colours, red, ochre-yellow, and dark chocolate-brown. It stained the fingers, and was suspiciously light--n'importe. I must regret that here, as indeed throughout the exploration, all our specimens were taken from the surface: we had not time to dig even a couple of feet deep. The lad 'Id almost fainted with joy and surprise when the silver dollars were dropped into his hand, one by one, with the reiteration of "Here's another for you! and here's another!" This lavishness served to stimulate cupidity, and every day the Bedawin brought in specimens from half a dozen different places. But the satisfaction was at its height when the crucible produced, after cupellation, a button of "silver" weighing some twenty grammes from the hundred grammes of what the grumbling Californian miners had called, in their wrath, "dashed black dust;"[EN#109] and when a second experiment yielded twenty-eight grammes (each fifteen grains and a half) and ten centigrammes from 111 grammes, or about a quarter of a pound avoirdupois. In the latter experiment also, the culot came away without the litharge, which almost always contains traces of silver and antimony. Hence we concluded that the proportions were 30:110--a magnificent result, considering that 12-1/2:100 is held to be rich ore in the silver mines of the Pacific States.[EN#110] The engineer was radieux with pride and joy. The yellow tint of the "buttons" promised gold--two per cent.? Three per cent.? Immense wealth lay before us: a ton of silver is worth 250,000 francs. Meanwhile--and now I take blame to myself--no one thought of testing the find, even by a blow with the hammer. Alas! THE "SPLENDID BUTTONS" PROVED TO BE IRON, CONTAINING ONLY TWO AND A HALF GRAMMES OF SILVER TO ONE HUNDRED KILOGRAMMES.[EN#111] I can afford to make merry on the absurd mistake, which at the time filled the camp with happiness. The Jebel el-Fahísát played us an ugly trick; yet it is, not the less, a glorious metalliferous block, and I am sure of its future.