[polarbear]

I took this picture of what I thought might be some gold embedded in a rock. Is it possible to tell for certain what it is? Sorry for the fuzziness of the picture.

gold2

[Mike Collins]

There are a number of products on the market (goldtester.com for one). You certainly have a good chance as it is the right kind of rock with iron, quartz, and either galena, nickel, or silver ore in also. It is probably iron pyrite though as some of the inclusions show smooth faceted surfaces characteristic of pyrite crystals. Iron sulfide (iron pyrite) has a mineral hardness of 6-6.5. Gold has a mineral hardness of 3. Get yourself a cheap specimen of fluorite (they have them at the science center and I have one in a shoebox). It has a hardness of 4. If it scratches the specimen then it might very well be gold. It looks like you have been picking around the rockpiles near Monte Cristo.

[polarbear]

Thanks for the information Mike. I'll have to stop by the Science Center and get some fluorite. I didn't realize you could test for gold that way. It sure looked like gold, but as they say, all that glistens is not gold. I won't say where it was except it was in the Cascades but not at Monte Cristo . Plus, I could probably never find the place again since my canteen was empty and I had been wandering for miles in a daze towards what was I thought was a lake but was probably a mirage when I set down my gps on the rock. I never heard the packrat steal the gps but I wouldn't have noticed the rock had gold in it if it hadn't been for that rat. Unfortunately, now only the packrat has the coordinates to the gold.

[Malachai Constant]

The gold at Monte Cristo was not free milling .i.e. it was chemicaly combined with Aresnic or Tellurium. The ore was primarily a copper ore (gree) with crysttals of iron pyrites and copper pyrites and aresno pyrites. While you could see gold colored crystals they were not gold. If the sample you have were real gold it would be considered jewelry ore and richer than all but one deposit I know of in WA. An easy way to test is to heat with charcoal (usually a block with a small hole) in a blow pipe flame. Real gold will melt into a ball but pyrites will burn with a smell of burning sulphur. Good Luck.