502 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



etc. In the present instance, besides the buried iron implements, 

 there were many pick-heads, shovels, etc., lying loose on the ground 

 near the different camps. 



September 10. Spent the day in plotting the route and making 

 skeleton maps for use during the remainder of the trip, utilising 

 the " bar " as a drawing-table. Macdonald and Grainer were 

 set to work washing the sand in the river bed. They got small 

 specks of gold in every dish, but not enough to pay for a white 

 man's food. 



September n. About 2 miles north of the shanty, the river 

 [the South Coen] tumbles merrily out of a gorge forming a series 

 of cascades over thick, nearly vertical beds of greywacke, whose 

 strike is from north to south. The greywacke beds form the 

 crowns of the hills on both banks of the river, as well as the most 

 constricted parts of the gorge. In the other parts of the river bed, 

 as well as on the hills, nothing but granite is seen. The granite has 

 large roundish grains of quartz, orthoclase felspar in crystals up to 

 2 inches in length, and tin-white mica, sometimes occurring in 

 large plates. We prospected above the gorge, but got no gold. 



Above the gorge, the river comes from the east for about 

 half a mile. The upper part of its course is from north to south, 

 or a little to the east of north. For 2 miles above the gorge it is 

 flanked by pretty high hills on the right bank, with comparatively 

 low rolling granite hills on the left bank. We prospected 2 miles 

 above the gorge and got much magnetic iron sand with fine 

 " colours " of gold. About 3 miles higher the valley gets very 

 narrow, with granite " tors " on the right bank. 



Below the gorge, a low gap divides the waters of the " Coen " 

 (or Kendall) from a valley [ROLL CREEK. R. L. J.] falling north- 

 ward into the Peach River. We got colours in the bed of the 

 Kendall (?) below the gorge. On an alluvial flat, on the right 

 bank of the river, here, was the Two-MiLE CAMP. Near this 

 camp, a third-magnitude creek, with large water-holes (PANDANUS 

 CREEK. R. L. J.], falls into the river. A large white quartz reef 

 crosses it twice in an east and west direction. Above the lower 

 crossing of the reef, a patch of alluvium on the left bank has been 

 diligently tested in numerous shafts. In one of these we got fair 

 " colours," as well as in the creek itself. A ravine known as the 

 Two-MiLE GULLY falls into the right bank of the creek, and here 

 the wash has been worked out. It was from this ravine that the 

 prospectors got the bulk of their GOLD. Their FORTIFIED hut, 

 already referred to, stands on the right bank of the creek between 

 the ravine and the river. 



I ascended the hills behind the hut and found them composed 

 of foliated brownish mica-schist and quartzite. From the top 1 

 could see to the NNW. down the valley [CROLL CREEK. R. L. J.] 

 above referred to as draining into the Peach River, to a high 



