Age of Auriferous Quartz Veins. 121 



for the reason that the stones and the gold may have formed 

 portion of the mass of some gravel, which was denuded before the 

 formation of the more recent gravel, as suggested by Murray.^ 

 Also, it is my opinion that we may have auriferous locally formed 

 gravels of any age from Upper Silurian to recent times, and I 

 know of no geological reason why a nugget may not have once 

 existed in a quartz reef in Lower Silurian rocks have been 

 denuded out and have rested for a while in an Upper Silurian 

 gravel, have been washed out again and become locked up in a 

 gravel of Devonian age and have passed in turn through a 

 Mesozoic, and Tertiary and finally when in a much reduced size 

 be taken from a wash of Post Pliocene age ; and that there may 

 exist in Victoria in certain favoured spots auriferous gravels of 

 any age from Upper Silurian to recent. 



1 Murray, I.e., p. 155. 



