like paper money, been given a value equal to gold.

The diamond has a value far exceeding that of gold, but this value
is dependent almost wholly upon its ornamental properties, although
the brilliant stone is also useful as an abrasive and cutting agent.

From these facts it is evident that gold, because of its rarity,
its physical properties, and its beauty, combines a larger number
of desirable characteristics than any other mineral.

Gold can be found in very small quantities nearly everywhere. It
is present in all the rocks and also in sea-water. The gold that
is distributed in this manner is of no value to us, for it would
cost many times as much to obtain it as it is worth. Nature has,
however, concentrated it for us in some places. In portions of
the world where the crust has been folded and broken there are
veins of quartz extending in long, narrow, and irregular sheets
through the rocks. This quartz is the home of the gold, and it
is usually found in hilly or mountainous regions.

Do not mistake the yellow iron pyrites for gold. Pyrites is brittle,
while gold is malleable. You can hammer a little grain of gold
into a thin sheet. Do not make the mistake, either, of thinking
that the shining yellow scales of mica which you see in the sand
in the bottom of a clear stream are gold. These yellow minerals
that look like gold have been called "fools' gold" because people
have sometimes been utterly deceived by them.

[Illustration: FIG. 99.--A GOLD-SILVER MINE

Summit of San Juan Range, Colorado]

Upon the Pacific slope minerals are now being deposited in some of
the openings of the rocks from which hot springs issue. A study of
these springs has led to the opinion that the gold-bearing quartz
veins were formed in a similar manner, but at a very remote time
in the past.

The milky or glassy quartz, which is so hard that you cannot scratch
it with the point of your knife, the little grains of pale yellow
iron pyrites, and the grains and threads of gold scattered through
the quartz, were at one time in solution in water. This water came
from some region far down in the earth, farther than we can ever
reach with the deepest shafts, and there, where it is very hot and
the pressure is great, the water dissolved the little particles
of gold and other minerals from the rocks; and then, gathering
them up, bore them along toward the surface, depositing them as
solid particles again in the form of veins in the fissu