BY W. F. PETTERD, C.M.Z.S. Sb 



metal that were obtained. Many individual crystals were 

 found measuring more than |-inch in length, and they 

 were often aggregated in masses of considerable size ; some- 

 times presenting an exquisitely beautiful arboriform 

 structure, and others again in a filiform mass, the latter 

 occasionally so intermixed as to present a sponge-like 

 structure. It is to be regretted that more examples of 

 these peculiar masses were not secured as museum speci- 

 mens, for now their occurrence has almost become a matter 

 of history. The gold, was, as a rule, but little waterworn, 

 and apparently originally occurred in small lenticular veins 

 composed of siderite, quartz, and pyrites, interlaminated 

 in the folia of the schistose country-rock. In some of the 

 Lefroy mines very fine examples of " slickensides " occur, 

 which are often faced with striations and patches of gold, 

 the whole being furrowed and highly polished. At the 

 Queen River an almost white gold has been obtained, 

 caused by its admixture with silver, and thus forming the 

 variety known as electrum. At McKusick's Creek, near the 

 King River, a considerable number of crystals were 

 obtained, the prevailing form being much elongated, in 

 many instances reaching nearly an inch in length. On the 

 property of the Union Prospecting Association, at Back 

 Creek, the metal has been discovered scattered throughout 

 a matrix of white friable sandstone, which apparently 

 forms the wall of a quartz reef, and at Middlesex it has 

 occurred in a similar rock. At Mt. Ramsay the cupriferous 

 pyrites, occurring in the characteristic hornblendic rock 

 of the locality, has been found by analysis to be highly 

 auriferous. At Mt. Lyell the ironstone, principally 

 micaceous hematite and limonite, contains more or less free 

 gold, which is also the case with the pyrites and native 

 copper occurring at the same locality. At the Specimen 

 Reef Mine and other places near the Savage River a large 

 quantity of gold has been obtained in and closely associated 

 with siderite, which mineral appears to be the main matrix 

 of the metal at this locality. At Lefroy and in the Fmgal 

 district when galena is met with in the mines it often 

 contains gold, and the small quantity of sphalerite that 

 occurs is invariably auriferous. At Waterhouse and vicin- 

 ity a considerable quantity of auriferous mispickel and 

 marcasite occurs in the quartz reefs of the district, and 

 the greater portion of the various pyritous minerals of the 

 Beaconsfield, Lefroy, and Fingal gold-mining districts are 

 so rich in the precious metal as to make their metallurgical 

 treatment of considerable importance to the various mines. 



