110 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



less crystals of the same mineral. The "wash" contains various 

 kinds of gem stones, such as corundum (with its varieties, 

 sapphire and Oriental emerald), topaz, zircon (with its varieties, 

 hyacinth and jargon), besides pleonaste, schorl, rock crystal, 

 and menaccanite. Many of the gems show the crystalline 

 faces distinctly. Among these is a perfect octahedron of 

 pleonaste and a sapphire in the form of a double hexagonal 

 pyramid, broken towards the apices. Many of the sapphires and 

 red zircons (hyacinths) are of good colour, free from flaws, and 

 weigh up to 2^2 carats. The Oriental emeralds are in much 

 larger pieces, some of them weighing 5 carats, and are of a 

 light green colour, but a good deal flawed. Even since 

 cutting the gems reduces them by about 75 per cent., it will be 

 seen that there is a commercial value attached to the stones 

 found here. The miners, however, are too busily engaged in 

 getting the gold, and utterly neglect the gems. 



The gold in this creek is very fine and scaly, quite unlike 

 that at Puzzle Gully ; in fact, some of it is so light as to float 

 away with even a moderate " head " of water. This renders it 

 necessary to use mercury as an amalgamating agent when finally 

 " cleaning up." The method of mining, with one exception, 

 which is by a tunnel, is the " paddock " system, with puddling 

 and box sluicing. Owing to the tenacious character of the clay, 

 derived from the decomposed felspar, which has percolated from 

 above, the washdirt has to be thoroughly puddled and the larger 

 stones carefully cleaned before being put through the boxes, 

 which are longer than usual on account of the extreme lightness of 

 the gold. Only the washdirt is sluiced, the overlying clay being 

 simply thrown to one side. The workings are in a rather oval- 

 shaped, shallow basin, and the sinking gets deeper towards the head 

 of the creek, as far as has yet been proved. The claims at this end 

 are so much troubled with water that in the richest one operations 

 had been suspended owing to want of suitable baling appliances. 



The workings on Middle Creek, about half a mile still further 

 to the east, are of the same nature. 



Apart from these three creeks very little work has been done 

 in any of the others, excepting Stringybark Creek, where a few 

 miners are still working. It need hardly be doubted that 

 careful prospecting towards the head of many of the streams as 

 yet untried would reveal the presence of other " leads," and 

 more discoveries may confidently be looked forward to if the 

 area is given anything like a fair trial. At the present time the 

 field supports upwards of 120 miners, some of whom are making 

 fair wages and a few doing well. It is computed that altogether 

 about 3,000 ozs. of gold have been obtained. 



A few remarks may be made as to the probable origin of the 

 gold. Throughout the whole area are found numerous veins and 



