The growth evolution of gold films evaporated on highly oriented pyrolitic graphite has been investigated using scanning tunneling microscopy. This is achieved by monitoring the morphology of sample surfaces which have been covered with increasing amounts of deposit. The smallest clusters observed at an early stage of the growth are a few nanometers in size. A saturation density of these clusters of about 2 X 10(11) cm-2 was statistically estimated. Both random and oriented grains were observed.