34 MINERALS OF TASMANIA. 
The auriferous districts, so far as discovered, are fairly well 
understood, so that from a mineralogical point of view it would be 
superfluous to minutely enumerate them. A few peculiar features 
as to the paragenesis and other local peculiarities may be of 
passing interest and worthy of record. At the Campbell’s 
Reward Mine, near Mt. Claude, the precious metal occurred in a 
very small vein or fracture plane in a rock that has been termed 
Porpyritic Syenite; the Gold was faced on to the rock with 
a backing of decomposed Felspar, and occurred in fern-like 
arborescent patches occasionally altering to radiating masses, the 
whole presenting a very peculiar and unique appearance. Much 
of the separated metal had the appearance of irregularly chopped 
hair, each fragment as seen under the microscope being covered 
with extremely minute recurved barbs ; scattered throughout the 
mass were also flaky plates of extreme tenuity, the surface of 
these bemg covered with sub-crystalline impressions. Altogether 
the general structure of the metal and its mode of occurrence 
differ very much from any other auriferous formation known to 
exist in the island; the Long Plain alluvial gold-field was noted 
for the numerous and remarkably fine crystal forms of the’ metal 
that were obtained—even rivalling Ballarat in this respect. Many 
individual crystals were found measuring above 23-inch in length, 
which were often aggregated together in masses of considerable 
size; some presenting an exquisitely beautiful arboriform struc- 
ture and others again in a filiform mass, the latter occasionally so 
intermixed as to present a sponge-like structure. It is to be 
regretted that more examples of these peculiar masses were not 
secured as museum specimens, for now their ovcurrence has almost 
become a matter of history. The gold was, as a rule, but little 
waterworn, and apparently occurred in small lenticular veins 
composed of Siderite, Quartz, and Pyrites, interlaminated in the 
folia of the schistose country rock. In some of the Lefroy mines 
very fine examples of “slickensides”? occur, which are often faced 
with striations and patches of gold, the whole being furrowed 
and highly polished; at the Queen River an almost white gold 
has been obtained, caused by its admixture with silver, and thus 
forming the variety known as Electrum; at M‘Kusick’s Creek, 
near the King River, a considerable number of crystals were 
obtained, the prevailing form being much elongated, in many 
instances reaching nearly an inch in leneth; on the property of 
the Union Prospecting Association, at Back Creek, the metal has 
been discovered scattered throughout a matrix of white friable 
sandstone, which apparently forms the wall ofa quartz reef; at 
Mt. Ramsay the cupriferous pyrites, occurring in the characteristic 
hornblendic rock of the locality, has been found by analysis to be 
highly auriferous; at Mt. Lyell the ironstone, principally 
micaceous Hematite and Limonite, contains more or less free 
gold, which is also the case with the Baryte, Pyrites, and 
