oises of the works began, so that we
were up early, and after breakfast went to the chlorination works with
Mr. Trinear, the assayer.

[Illustration: Ti-Trees]

The first thing shown us was the stone just as it came from the drays
we had watched at work yesterday. This was speedily crushed into
powder, baked, and mixed with charcoal. It then passed through another
process within the powerful furnaces, which separated the ore from the
rock and poured it forth, literally in a stream, golden as the river
Pactolus. I never saw anything more wonderful than this river of
liquid gold. A little phial held to the mouth of one of the taps
became just a bottle of gold in solution. By adding hydrochlorate of
iron the gold is precipitated in about seventy hours, and the water
can be drained off pure as crystal, without a vestige of gold
remaining in it. The gold itself is then mixed with borax, put through
a further smelting-process, and ultimately comes out in solid nuggets,
worth, according to the purity of the gold, from 300_l._ to 400_l._
each. The children were very pleased at being able to hold 1,200_l._
in their hands. Mr. Trinear told me that as the metal comes from the
furnaces mixed with charcoal they often obtain as much as 75, and he
had got as much as 86, per cent. of gold.

The Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company possess probably the most
productive gold-mine in the world. The discovery of the gold-bearing
rock, of which the whole mass of Mount Morgan is composed, was made
while searching for copper ore. The gold at Mount Morgan is obtained
from a lode of decomposed iron pyrites, partly underlying a bed of
quartz, and at various points cropping up to the surface. The original
discoverers of the ore, and the individuals who supplied the slender
amount of capital with which the company commenced operations, have
realised great fortunes.

At Mount Morgan the process known as chlorination has been developed
on a larger scale than has elsewhere been attempted. It is described
as follows:--

'The process of chlorination at Mount Morgan is a very interesting
one, and would well repay a visit of inspection by any who are
interested in the profitable and economic treatment of auriferous
ores. The tailings, as they come from the battery or from the dry
crusher, as the case may be, are first of all roasted in eight large
furnaces, each with a capacity of putting through eight tons in
twenty-four hours. The roasting of the ore