BY EDWD. B. LINDON, A.R.S.M. 4I 
“Mount Morgan itself contains gold in a very unusual—! believe a quite 
unprecedented—formation. Aneroid measurements give the altitude 
of Mount Morgan as 1,225 feet above the sea level. . . The work is 
carried on in two quarries or faces. No. 1 cuts into the hill from a level of 
about 25 feet below the summit, and is designed simply to remove the top 
of the mountain for the purpose of passing it through the stampers. No. 2, 
or Magazine Quarry, presents the aspect of a ‘siding’ road cut out of a steep 
hill, and attacks the auriferous deposit at a level of about 100 feet below 
No. 1. The central portion of the upper cutting is a large mass of brown 
hematite ironstone generally in great blocks (up to some tons in weight) 
with a stalactitic structure, as if the iron oxide had gradually filled up 
cavities left in the original deposit. The ironstone contains gold of 
extraordinary fineness, which, however, after a little practice can be 
detected in almost every fresh fracture. The ironstone is more or less 
mixed with siliceous granules. Gradually to right and left of the central 
mass the silica more and more replaces the ironstone, It is a frothy, 
spongy, or cellular sinter, sometimes so light from the enlargement of air 
in its pores that it floats in water like pumice. Fine gold is disseminated 
throughout this siliceous deposit as well as in the ironstone. Near the 
west end of the cutting is a vertical dyke of kaolin mixed with fine 
siliceous granules passing into pure kaolin, with some silicates of magnesia, 
including a fine variety of French chalk. 
“‘T selected a number of specimens as characteristic of the various 
deposits of the upper cutting. These when assayed gave the following 
result :— 
Stalactitic brown hematite from middle of cutting; 6 ozs. 11 
dwts. gold per ton. 
Siliceous sinter, veined with quartz; 4 ozs. 5 dwis. gold per ton. 
A mixed mass of ironstone and silica from the level of the road, 
east of the dyke; 5 ozs. 3 dwts. gold per ton. 
Iron-stained siliceous sinter from the west side of dyke; 10 ozs. 
14 dwts. gold per ton. 
‘““The lower or magazine face presents a sort of fan-like arrangement of 
its various materials. In the centre is a band (almost vertical) of brown 
hematite in large ‘bombs,’ with a mammillated, botryoidal, or sometimes 
reniform appearance. To the right (east) is a nearly vertical deposit of 
aluminous iron ochre, followed by a mass (still nearly vertical) of red 
hematite in cellular bombs. To the east is a broad mass of siliceous and 
aluminous material, which begins to lean eastward like the outer feathers 
of afan. A great mass of loose earthy red hematite, another of brown 
hematite weathering to iron ochre, another of red earthy hematite, and 
another of brown hematite in large (ton) blocks, appear in succession as 
the cutting is followed to the east. The magazine (near the east end of 
the cutting) is excavated in a fine white siliceous earth, and the cutting 
ends with a mass of soft earthy aluminate. Beginning from the west side 
of the nearly vertical mass of brown hematite first described, we pass in 
succession going westward a band of yellow ochre, a broad belt of light 
siliceous sinter, ironstained, and containing some angular fragments of the 
quartzite of the ‘country rocks,’ a belt of similar siliceous sinter mixed 
with earthy red hematite, and finally a broad mass of loose siliceous sinter 
