74              TEE PROCESS OF REDUCTION.
	be formed in reading the reports of assayists, through misconception of the nature of the samples submitted for analysis. By way of example, supposing that the residue left in the dish, or tray, after washing down some eight pounds weight of crushed quartz, may not weigh more than a quarter of an ounce. Of course this quarter of an ounce will contain the gold washed out of the original eight pounds. Now the assay report is usually given on the sample submitted; and is not of the remotest use in forming a judgment on the value of a reef, or deposit, unless the propor­tion that the residue bears to the bulk is also known. What would the Glenrock shareholders have under­stood by the assay of the sample brought home by me when told that it afforded 555 ounces to the ton ? The question here is per ton of what ? of quartz, or of the sample ? Now, this particular sample may have been very thoroughly reduced, and its auriferous character will entirely depend on the manner in which it has been washed. In order to find the true quantity of gold in the quartz, it will be necessary to divide the yield of gold afforded in the sample by the proportion the sediment left bore to the entire quantity washed. And the 555 ounces to the ton, then, shows the true quantity of gold to the ton of quartz to be about eighteen pennyweights. Yet, assuming that some gold had been lost in the washing, I next, in order to test the accuracy of the first assay, submitted a