PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS — SECTION C. 12^ 



such powerful and costly machinery as is now essential for this- 

 class of mining. 



With respect to quartz-mining, however, it may safely he- 

 predicted that, though no great augmentation of the annual 

 yield can be expected, the industry will flourish for centuries 

 to come. Quartz reefs have been proved payable and even 

 rich at depths of more than 2,000ft. : they are being worked 

 deep in the Silurian bed-rock beneath the exhausted alluvial 

 deep leads. There are hundreds of known reefs, once proved 

 auriferous, but temporarily abandoned, which will assuredly 

 be reworked and found payable at greater depths. There are 

 great areas of exhausted alluvial workings, the gold in which 

 must have been derived from matrices as yet undiscovered, but 

 which will eventually be sought for and found. 



The mining machinery, gold-saving appliances, and methods 

 of working have been, and are still, undergoing constant im- 

 provement. Mining, in fact, is becoming a scientific pursuit ; 

 and, though the gross annual gold-yield is smaller than hereto- 

 fore, the amount earned per head by the smaller number 

 actually engaged in mining compares favourably with that 

 of the times when yields were larger and miners more 

 numerous. 



Even the gambling form of speculation which has proved so 

 disastrous to legitimate mining has in a great measure become 

 lessened, and people are beginning to recognise the principle 

 that success in mining requires for its achievement as much 

 discretion and judgment as in any mercantile or manufactur- 

 ing undertaking. As this improvement continues, capital will 

 be more and more confined to legitimate ventures, "paper 

 mining " will decay, and the gold-yield will show a more notice- 

 able profit over expenditure, even though it may continue to 

 shghtly decrease. 



We may now consider the ways in which the geologist can 

 best apply his knowledge and trained reasoning-powers to the 

 work of assisting the miner and guiding the outlay of the 

 mining capitalist into proper channels. As before remarked, 

 the miner has now a greater respect for the geologist than he 

 had thirty years ago ; he no longer regards him as an unprac- 

 tical dreamer, and at the same time does not err in the opposite 

 extreme of believing him capable of divining-powers. Both 

 geologist and miner recognise, so far as the application of 

 geology to mining is concerned, that the one must base his 

 reasoning on the facts ascertained through the labours of the 

 other. The lines of research proposed in the case of Victoria 

 are probably, with some modifications, applicable to all other 

 gold-bearing countries, and, if worked out to definite results, 

 may wonderfully aid the development of gold-mining. It 

 has already been stated that in Victoria certain reefs or 



