44 



the lode is nearly thrice the size it is in the slate about 15 

 yards away ; but whether it will maintain its i^resent size, or 

 increase it at a greater depth where the granite will assume 

 the crystalline condition, or pinch, can only be ascertained 

 by future operations. At the present depth the granite 

 begins to assume the crystalline character ; large, rounded 

 blocks, which have escaped decomposition by exfoliation, 

 having been brought to the surface. The quartz at this 

 depth, for the shaft has been sunk on the vein, is fi'om lOin. 

 to 12in. wide, and a recent mortar crushing in Launceston 

 gave the satisfactory yield of 4| ounces of Grold to the ton. 

 The Grold is plainly visible in nearly every piece of quartz, and 

 I never crushed a piece without obtaining an excellent 

 prospect. 



Comparatively little prospecting has been done in this 

 district ; not more than nine 10-acre sections have been 

 applied for, and consequently comj^aratively little is known 

 of the extent of the auriferous country. I am of opinion that 

 it will eventually be found to be a moderately extensive 

 Groldfield ; and append a rough sketch plan of the locality. 



NOTES ON LEONTOPODIUM CATIPES. 

 By Baron von Mueller, K.C.M.G., M.D., F.K.S. 



[^Read 15th Nov., 1881.] 



In instituting recently a census of the genera of the whole 

 Australian vegetation, I had to give to the remarkable alpine 

 plant, first described by De Candolle as Gnaphalium cati2:)es, 

 a generic place also, its position thus far having never yet 

 been firmly settled. Examining the plant first from localities 

 in the Victorian Alps, I placed it in Aiitennaria, and described 

 it as A. nubigena already in 1854 (Transact. Phil. Soc. of 

 Victoria, i., 45), alluding already to the likelihood of its 

 identity with Grunn's plant, sent by Lindley to the elder 

 De Candolle ; but I had no Tasmanian specimens at that time 

 to establish its sameness with the one of the Australian Alps. 

 In assigning to it a position among the species of Antennaria, 

 I was careful to point out at once that it did not altogether 

 accord with the characteristics of the legitimate congeners, 

 our plant not being strictly dioecious. Indeed I was then 

 already considering whether it ought not to find its most 

 appropriate place in Leontopodium, notwithstanding the 

 generally solitary capitula, and the biformity of the flower 

 heads. To overcome the difiiculty which presented itself, I 

 framed a subgenus " Actina " for the reception of Anten- 



