THE GEOLOGICAL PLANS OF SOME 

 AUSTRALIAN MINING-FIELDS 



By J. W. GREGORY, F.R.S. 



Professor of Geology, University of Glasgow 



PAGE 



i. The Mount Lyell Copper-Field 118 



2. Pyrite-Smelting at Mount Lyell 124 



3. The Mount Bischoff Tin-Mine 126 



4. The Australian Saddle Reefs and their Distribution 128 



(a) Bendigo 128 



(6) Castlemaine 130 



(c) Broken Hill 131 



(d) The Separation of the Broken Hill Zinc Ores 134 



5. The Indicators of Ballarat 135 



The character of the Australian people is well illustrated by 

 their management of their mining-fields. Their mining methods 

 show the daring and originality of the pioneer; the honesty 

 inspired by adventurous comradeship is still conspicuous in their 

 business management ; and the progress of the mines is described 

 in a Press which is unsurpassed in integrity in the whole world 

 of mining journalism. Australian mining often lacks the pre- 

 cision, thoroughness, and finish of German metallurgy; its 

 sampling is often slapdash, and its bookkeeping looks slovenly 

 compared with the elaborate specialisation of mining accounts 

 on the Rand. But the highly experienced Australian miners 

 are able to do by instinct, work that, in some fields, must be 

 done by rule ; and the trained insight and practical capacity 

 found among every grade of Australian miners have achieved 

 economic successes, which are among the glories of modern 

 mining, and discovered new methods, which have helped the 

 development of the industry in all quarters of the globe. 

 Australian mining has, of course, its record of blunders, and 

 some of them have been disastrous; the chief have been due 

 to the misguidance of false analogies regarding the geological 

 structure of the mining-fields, and to mistaken views as to the 

 plan of distribution of the ore deposits. 



117 



