126 GOLD OCCURRENCE IN QUEENSLAND ; 
the exception of the great alluvial deposits on the Palmer River, 
there was no water-washed gold found in the soil to a large 
amount anywhere, and so it comes to pass that our reefs yield 
all round, as nearly as possible, 40 dwts. of gold to the ton—an 
average result which not only challenges, but (in racing phrase) 
“distances” all the world besides. 
And there is an advantage in this to our colony that does not 
appear in the surface of matters. Reef gold has to be (very much) 
worked for, and one-half at least, of its £3 10s. per ounce value 
has to be spent and remain in the colony in the shape of wages, 
machinery, &c. We clearly gain by every ounce of gold won 
from the reef in our vast territory. There is none of that system 
of taking £30,000 worth of gold in nuggets and water-worn 
pieces out of one hole, in one week, that used to obtain in the 
colony of Victoria, enabling the lucky finders to go home to 
Europe with their plunder, and leave the colony only the richer 
by their week’s rations and the purchase of their mining tools. 
Fortunately we in Queensland get considerably more, though 
indirect benefit, from our gold yield than this. 
The Southern limit of payable gold in this colony may be 
considered to be at Gympie, where it occurs in a tolerably pure 
state in quartz that traverses what miners call “slate,” but which 
more resembles diorite (or basalt). There is a little galena and 
copper and some calcspar with it, but it is much more “free” than 
the gold at Kilkivan, which is so mixed up with copper, lead, and 
other metals as to be difficult to extract, though very plentiful. 
Eidsvold, in the same district, gives good “straight” quartz and 
gold. Passing north we come to the Mount Perry, Reid’s Creek, 
and Rawbelle districts, where gold is also plentiful, but much 
incorporated with the ores of iron, the same as at the Crocodile 
Creek and Charters Towers. Passing over the minor reefs at 
Cania and the Boyne, we come to that grand ‘ Central emporium” 
of gold in Queensland, that lies grouped to the south of the Fitzroy 
River. Rosewood and Mount Morgan produce the purest gold 
in our colony. Clermont and Cloncurry being “well up” in point 
of fineness also. Ridglands and Blackfellows’ Gully show free 
gold in decomposed sulphuret of lead, and at Morinsh it shows 
free and very pure in iron and copper ores. Mount Britton and 
Clermont are minor goldfields, but Charters Towers is a proof of 
the prolific nature of good mundic in the concealment, entangle- 
ment, and useful reservation of gold in wholesale quantities free 
from all risk of alluvial escape or of being cheaply raised and 
borne out of the country without benefiting its native land, as so 
