Dec. 23, 1869] 
NATURE 
PNT 
of the miners, and collecting every variety of information 
for the use of the Government. More than this, a geological 
survey was established, under the direction of one of the 
ablest of the staff of the Geological Survey of the United 
Kingdom, Mr. Selwyn; and funds were furnished for the 
production of maps, sections, and other publications 
necessary for elucidating the geological structure of the 
colony. That survey has done excellent work, the real 
value of which may possibly not be understood in the 
colony for some years to come. We cannot but regret, 
therefore, that in a spirit of parsimony the colonial Parlia- 
ment has recently abolished the survey, and deprived the 
colony of the great advantage of obtaining accurate infor- 
mation as to the mineral tracts which remain yet to be 
explored. Nevertheless, for what has already been done 
to develop her mineral resources, and to gather accurate 
information regarding the structure of the rocks, and the 
distribution of gold, the colony may be very heartily 
congratulated. 
The handsome volume, whose title heads this article, 
tells the story of the rapid rise of Victoria. It is a large 
thick octavo, beautifully printed, and embellished with 
many woodcuts, sections, and plans of singular excellence, 
the whole having been prepared anJ executed in Mel- 
bourne. Mr. Brough Smyth, Secretary for Mines to the 
colony, seeing the want of any trustworthy account of the 
gold-fields of that region, and having himself peculiar 
advantages for the task, proposed to himself to compile a 
narrative of all that was known regarding the mineral 
districts, the different modes in which the gold occurs, 
and the various methods in use for obtaining it. He has 
carried out the project with most commendable patience, 
and has produced a volume about the Victorian mines 
which is itself quite a mine of information both to the 
practical digger and to the geologist. 
After a brief introduction, in which the author traces 
the successive steps which led to the commencement and 
prosecution of his work, he sketches the general topogra- 
phical and geological features of the mineral districts. 
He then briefly describes the circumstances attendant on 
the first discovery and earliest mining of gold in Victoria, 
and passes on to treat of the different modes in which 
the gold occurs. The older or basement rocks are of 
palaozoic age. They are plicated and denuded very 
much like our own Silurian strata in Wales, Cumberland, 
and Scotland. They are, as a whole, but little altered, 
consisting in large measure of sandstones, mudstones, 
and shales, which now and then pass into harder and 
somewhat schistose varietics. Across these strata run 
thousands of quartz veins, which vary in thickness from 
one-sixteenth of an inch to 100 and 150ft. Although gold 
has been found in small quantity disseminated between 
the planes of bedding of the sandstones, it is in these 
quartz veins that it chiefly occurs zz s¢#z. It takes many 
forms—fine flakes or grains floating, as it were, in the 
quartz, ramifying threads or moss-like aggregations, 
spangles, thin plates like gold-leaf, well defined crystals, 
irregular strings, rough lumps, and large nuggets. How 
the gold got into the veins is a question on which Mr, 
Brough Smyth brings forward much argumentation from 
different writers holding discordant views, but which he 
does not himself attempt to solve. 
Overlying the palzozoic rocks with their quartz veins 
are “drifts” and alluvial accumulations of different ages. 
These are very generally auriferous, the gold occurring in 
detached fragments, varying in shape and size from mere 
dust up to masses like the “welcome stranger nugget,” 
which weighed upwards of 2280 ounces. There are 
features of special geological interest in these alluvia, 
which will be noticed in a second article. The very soil 
is sometimes full of gold, particularly where it overlies, or 
slopes from, a quartz-reef. In one place a patch of such 
soil, about twelve feet square and one foot deep, yielded 30 
ounces of gold, even with such rude processes of extraction 
as were in use in the early days of the gold-fields. 
Mr. Smyth arranges the different methods of working 
gold as follows :— 
“(1) Surfacing—the washing of the thin covering of earth 
resting on the tops and sides of the hills in the 
close neighbourhood of auriferous quartz veins. 
( 
to 
) Shallow-sinking—the obtaining washdirt from off 
the surface of the old claystones, sandstones, and 
slates, by sinking pits, or making excavations in 
the valleys and creeks. 
(3) Stuicing and hydraulic mining—the washing of the 
auriferous earths, by streams of water, in the 
gulleys and valleys where recent deposits of 
auriferous gravels and clays occur. 
(4) Deep sinking—the obtaining auriferous earths by 
penetrating the deeper tertiaries. 
(5) Tunnelling—-the obtaining auriferous earths and 
veinstones by adits. 
(6) Quartz-mining—the obtaining gold from the mineral 
veins intersecting the older sedimentary rocks.” 
The author gives copious details of these different 
processes as carried on in the various claims and fields, 
Much of the information so given has necessarily but a 
local interest, yet its compilation into the present accessible 
form cannot but prove of much service to those practically 
engaged in gold-mining in the colony. Some idea of the 
richness of the Victorian gold-fields may be obtained from 
the fact that from the first discovery of the precious metal 
in 1851, up to the end of last year, there had been obtained 
36,835,691} ounces, estimated as equal to £147,342,767. 
In the year 1854, just three years after the first discovery 
of gold, and when the gold-fever was at its height, the 
number of miners was 65,763. Since that time the 
numbers have siowly diminished, and in September, 1868, 
they stood at 63,482. There has been a still more marked 
diminution in the amount of gold reported. “In 1856, the 
quantity sent out of the colony reached to 2,985,991 ounces, 
while last year it was only 1,657,498 ounces. 
Besides gold, Victoria furnishes other valuable mineral 
resources. Ores of silver, tin, copper, antimony, zinc, 
lead, cobalt, bismuth, manganese, and iron occur, some of 
them in great abundance. Coal, lignite, and bituminous 
shales are likewise met with; while among the mineral 
produce of the colony are likewise enumerated the 
sapphire and the diamond. 
The author’s official position as Secretary for Mines 
afforded him excellent opportunities for collecting infor- 
mation regarding the mines in every part of the colony. 
But such official experience does not necessarily bring 
with it any practical knowledge of mining, still less any 
