Dee. 30, 1869] 
NATURE 
252 
been fitted up in the General Post Office, with tele- | 
graphic instruments, in order that the clerks on the 
premises may learn to work them ; and “dummy” instru- 
ments for the use of learners have been sent to the post 
offices in the provinces. The apparatus for common use 
will be the Morse printing telegraph and the single needle 
instrument; a wise selection, for long experience has 
proved them to be the best to place in the hands of un- 
scientific clerks. They are not very liable to get out of 
order, and are very certain in their indications. 
The following are among the changes that will be 
gradually made, some of them, however, at so distant a 
date that even the preliminaries have not been arranged 
as yet. The nine large district post offices in London will 
be made central stations, and each one will be connected 
by wire with the subordinate offices in its district. The 
chief post office in each of the largest provincial towns 
will be made a central telegraphic station, and the chief 
provincial towns will be placed in direct communication 
with three of the largest central London offices, namely, 
those in the West Central, Western, and South-western dis- 
tricts, in addition to the chief office in the East Central 
district. Suborbinate offices will be opened throughout 
the kingdom at the money-order offices in all places 
having a population of 2,000 persons and upwards, 
Messages will be received at all post offices for trans- 
mission by hand in the ordinary way to stations in con- 
nection with the telegraphic lines; pillar boxes will be 
places of deposit for messages written on stamped paper; 
and, as a rule, all messages will have to be paid for in 
stamps. The charge for transmission of a message of 
twenty words from any one part of the United Kingdom 
to any other part will be one shilling; but when it -has to 
be delivered at a considerable distance from the nearest 
terminal station, it will be forwarded from that station by 
post for a penny, or by special messenger at sixpence per 
mile. Facilities will be given for the transmission of 
money-orders by telegraph, and as soon as possible the 
charges for messages to foreign parts will be reduced. 
Such are the plans which will be carried out, some of 
which will be in a very forward state in a few weeks’ time. 
THE GOLD FIELDS OF VICTORIA 
The Gold Fields and Mineral Districts of Victoria. By 
R. Brough Smyth. (Melbourne: J. Ferres; London: 
Triibner and Co.) 
Uc 
LTHOUGH large quantities of gold are obtained 
from the detrital accumulations which overlie the 
paleeozoic rocks of Victoria, there can be no doubt that 
they have come originally from the decomposition and 
removal of the auriferous quartz veins by which these 
rocks are traversed. The gold is simply a part of the 
detritus, in the same way that the fragments of quartz, 
sandstone, and slate are. Each nugget and bit of gold is 
only a-more or less water-worn pebble, its edges being, as 
_arule, less worn, and its size larger, the nearer it is found 
to its parent reef. Yet some writers have endeavoured to 
show that the nuggets really grow by a kind of accretion, 
-each fragment of gold becoming larger by successive 
depositions of the metal held in solution in the water 
percolating through the gravels. Mr. Brough Smyth, in 
discussing these and other disputed questions, usually 
} 
avoids the expression of any decided opinion of his own. 
He treats them very much as a judge treats the evidence 
at a trial, and he leaves the decision to the jurymen, his 
readers. Yet we can very commonly guess what his 
opinions are, though he may not expressly state them. 
He gives us a tolerably copious account of opinions 
which have been published relative to the origin of quartz 
veins, and among these a valuable series of notes and 
sections specially made for him by a mining engineer of 
repute in the colony. The whole of this subject is, he 
says, involved in obscurity; “and though it is not pos- 
sible for any one who has given attention to it to attach 
equal weight to the several theories which have been 
proposed, he would do wrong rashly to dismiss any of 
them as altogether improbable.” Perhaps a judicial sum- 
ming-up of this kind was, in the circumstances, better 
than the keen advocacy of any one theory. What is of 
value to the engineer in the colony is, to know what has 
really been written about the veins; and this he can 
learn with ease and satisfaction from Mr. Smyth’s pages. 
Allusion was made, in the previous notice of this 
volume, to the excellence of the geological and mining 
sections. It is rare to meet with such sections, so clearly 
conceived, so tastefully drawn, and carrying with them 
such conviction of their truth. The plate illustrative of 
the Ballarat gold fields is quite a model of clearness 
and clever drawing. No colour is used, but the various 
rocks are sharply defined, while, by the kind of drawing 
given to each, the internal structure of the mass is feli- 
citously rendered. In the way of illustrations, the book 
seems to have only one failing, but it is a serious one: 
there is no geological map of the colony. The map at 
the end does not supply the want. A little coloured 
sketch-map, giving a general outline of the distribution of 
the geological formations, would have been an invaluable 
addition to the book, and would have certainly been 
worth a whole chapter of description. 
One of the most striking facts brought out by the data 
compiled by Mr. Smyth is the high geological antiquity of 
the present land-surface of Victoria, or, in other words, 
the immense period during which that surface has re- 
mained above the sea.* The palaozoic strata form the 
framework out of which the contour of the land has been 
moulded. These strata have been curved and folded, 
thrown on end, inverted, fractured, and upheaved. 
But the surface outlines are not found to bear any close 
relation to the direction of the subterranean movements. 
“There is scarcely one range in the colony which is not 
due to denudation, and those following lines of upheaval 
have been so modified by the action of water, through 
countless ages, as to make it difficult to determine where 
and how the elevating forces have operated.” The 
palzeozoic rocks were carved out into systems of valleys 
by the descent of rain-water from the watersheds to the 
lower grounds. Along these valleys river-gravels were 
laid down. In later times many volcanoes broke out, 
and thick streams of basalt rolled into the valleys and 
buried the ancient river-courses, Thus, in many places, 
the surface and the drainage of wide areas were wholly 
changed. New streams began to flow and to excavate 
new channels, which often flowed across the trend of the 
older valleys lying buried beneath them. By slow 
degrees these later valleys sank deeper into the frame- 
