Mount Morgan Gold Mhie. 351 



Such pure gold was confined to the secondary ores of the 

 enriched zone. The siliceous and kaolin ores of the impoverished 

 zone canned a considerable percentag'e of silver alloy, amountinsT 

 to 43 per cent, in some cases, and as the gold in the secondary 

 ores was furnished from the ore that yields bullion with much 

 silver, it is evident that the silver has been got rid of in its 

 transference from the leached ore to the enriched zone. 



Lower still in the mine the gold of the sulphide zone is much 

 alloyed with silver. 



A characteristic of the gold at Mt. Morgan was its extreme 

 state of subdivision. This was so much the case that some 

 examples candying scores of ounces of gold to the ion showed 

 nothing that could be detected by the naked eye, even in some 

 cases ore carrying over 50 ozs. per ton disclosed no visible gold. 

 In the trench sunk by Morgan where the stone was fabulously 

 rich the gold was excessively minute. It was visible in the 

 ironstone in places as small crystalline flakes and also as loose 

 crystalline spangles thickly disseminated in some of the beds 

 of loose sand. Before Mt. Morgan was discovered alluvial gold 

 was worked in Linda Creek. 



Tlie extremely fine character of the gold at first proved an 

 impediment to its extraction, as it could not be recovered by the 

 ordinarv battery a^nd amalgamation. Assays of the tailings 

 showed that but a fraction was being recovered. Chlorination 

 was had recourse to, and solved the problem. 



As much as £4 4s. 8d. per oz. was paid for the earlier parcels 

 of gold from this mine. 



Throughout the mine in the several classes of ore the distribu- 

 tion <if the gold was most erratic, one assay would give but a 

 trace ; the next might give ounces per ton. 



0\ such great fineness were the particles of gold that the red 

 dust which escaped from the dust chamber of the mill taken at 

 a distance of a mile away, yielded assays of 1 oz. per ton, as the 

 late Mr. Wesley Hall informed the writer. 



In 1889 over a ton of gold per month was being despatched 

 from the mine, and this continued for about a year. 



It is cm'ious that although the gold of this mine occurs asso- 

 ciated with much copper in the form of sulphide, it does not 

 appear to be alloyed with that metal, but with silver. The total 



