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The upper reaches of the rivers, where they descend rapidly from the slopes of the mountains, are composed of long series of shallow rapids and low waterfalls, alternating at short intervals with still pools and calm shallows, bounded by rock walls and great beds of waterworn stones, which during the frequent freshets are submerged by a boiling flood.
With regard to the assumed waterworn appearance of alluvial gold, I have examined with the microscope the smooth surface of more than one apparently waterworn nugget, and found that it was not scratched and abraded, as would have been the case had it been really waterworn, but that it presented the same appearance, though infinitely finer in grain, as the surface of a piece of metal fresh from the electrical plating-bath.
The globe had been trailing along the coastline, and now it angled out to glide over a long finger of cape, rocky and waterworn, which pointed at almost a right angle into the sea. This dwindled into a reef of rock, like the nail on a finger. The sea ahead was no unbroken expanse.
Clare is pretty stony. Again I saw fields from which stones had been gathered to form fences like ramparts. Again I saw fields crusted with stone like the fields of Cong, with the same waterworn appearance, but not so extensive. The little, pretty station of Cusheen seemed an oasis in a stony wilderness.
Perhaps there is something in Africa itself which makes it a huge exception to the rules of other lands; the something which is suggested in the 'rivers without water, flowers without scent, and birds without song'; a contrariness which puts the alluvial gold on the top of mountain ranges and leaves the valleys barren; which mocked the experience of the world, and showed the waterworn gravel deposit to be the biggest, richest, deepest, and most reliable gold reef ever known; which placed diamonds in such conditions that the greatest living authority, who had undertaken a huge journey to report on the occurrence, could only say, in the face of a successful wash-up, 'Well, there may be diamonds here, but all I can say is they've no right to be'; the something which many, many centuries ago prompted the old Roman to write, 'Ex Africâ semper aliquid novi affert, and which is in the mind of the South African to-day when he says, 'The impossible is always happening in Africa.
He had seen it beetling above him and knew beforehand that he could not hope to scale such a precipice; yet he clambered up to it, still examining the rock with minute care. As he walked across the waterworn shelf at the foot of the sheer cliff, his eye was caught by a wide seam of quartz in the side wall of the gulch.
The land showed no sign of hills, but the banks were steep at this season, in places here and there based on ruddy sand and exposing strips of rude conglomerate, the cascalho of the Brazil. This pudding is composed of waterworn pebbles, bedded in a dark clayey soil which crumbles under the touch.
They had our tents pitched for us, and everything ready. A wild, lonely place was this green valley, with its fantastic waterworn bluffs that bore a grotesque resemblance to turtles, seals and other great sea-beasts, and it was delightful to see trees again and to hear the sound of running water.
We reached Dunlop Island on the 24th just before the fog descended on us, and got a view along the stretch of coast to the north which turns at this point. Dunlop Island has undoubtedly been under the sea. We found regular terrace beaches with rounded waterworn stones all over it; its height is 65 feet.
The generally smooth appearance of alleged alluvial gold is adduced as an argument in favour of its having been carried by water from its original place of deposit, and thus in transit become waterworn; while some go so far as to say that it was shot out of the reefs in a molten state.
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