Note 18 — GOLD: ITS NATURAL AND CIVIL HISTORY.[1][2]

Jacob, i. p. 56. In copying the above extract from Diodorus, we inserted the word quartz in brackets after his word “marble,” under the impression that the old Egyptian mines were, like the similar ones in California, really situated in veins of quartz, and not of marble. We have since communicated with a gentleman who, about twenty years ago, accompanied M. Linant, a French engineer in the service of Mehemet Ali, to examine these mines, and he informs us that the gold was really found in quartz veins traversing a black slaty rock. The locality, as may be seen in Sharpe’s Chronology and Geography of Ancient Egypt, plate 10, is in the Eastern Desert, about the middle of the great bend of the Nile, and about the 21st parallel. The samples of rock brought down by M. Linant were considered rich enough to justify the despatch of a body of miners, who were subsequently attacked by the natives, and forced to abandon the place. A strong government would overcome this difficulty; and modern modes of crushing and extraction might possibly render the mines more productive than ever. A very interesting account of these mines is to be found in a work by Quatremere de Quincy—“Notice des Pays voisins de l’Egypte.”