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GOLD-YELLOW NATIVE GOLD. * t the Romans, who derived great wealth from them. The island of Thasos in the Mediterranean was celebrated for its mines of gold ; and Thrace and Macedonia afforded much gold to the ancients. The sand ot the Danube, Rhine, Rhone, Tagus, and many other European rivers, afford gold, and have been at different periods washed for this metal. Jeia, There are few considerable mine9 of gold at present worked in this quarter of the globe. ^ In Siberia, native gold occurs at Schlangenberg, in veins that tra verse hornblende rock : auriferous pyrites is met with in quartz at Beresof, in the same country. In the southern parts of Asia, the sands of many rivers afford gold. The Pactolus, a small river in Lydia, formerly afforded so much gold, that it is alleged to have been one of the chief sources of the riches of Croesus. The numerous islands in the Indian ocean, as Java, Japan, Formosa, Borneo, and the Philippines, afford considerable quantities of gold. In the island of Sumatra, 15,400 ounces of gold are collected annually. It is obtained, either from veins, where, it is associated with quartz, or from alluvial soil, where it occurs in the form of dust, or in masses that sometimes weigh upwards of nine ounces *. There are considerable mines of gold in Cochinchina, of which the most important are those in the provinces of Cham and Naulang, where the gold occurs in dust or grains, and in pieces that sometimes weigh fully two ounces. Gold-mines are also worked in the kingdom of of Siam. Africa. This continent affords a considerable quan tity of gold, which is always obtained in the form of dust or rolled masses, which is found in the sand of rivers, or the * Marsclon's Sumatra, p. 172* 3d edition.