280 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society, 



quartz veins would prove auriferous, on which account he pro- 

 posed to drive a gigantic level — starting from below the " Gold 

 Mine Lodge " (the house near the ford), and proceeding north- 

 westerly to pierce the ridge of Ballinagore. This was never 

 executed, but these veins seem all to have been cut, by the trench 

 opened from the " Red hole," along the boundary between Bal- 

 linagore and Ballinasilloge, while Crockford's company are stated 

 to have made open casts at right angles to the stream without 

 being more successful.* 



Weaver's suggestion was that these minerals occur disseminated 

 widely, though in minute quantities, through the ror ^ of the 

 mountain. He, however, acknowledged that the ( '"^n 



works did not support this opinion in any way, 

 negative evidence of where the gold was not to be fo. 



Dr. Bartholomew Lloyd, in his first address as president x. 

 Dublin Geological Society, showed that as the rich deposit was 

 so local the explorations might have been confined to the vicinity 

 of that deposit. 



Professor Warington W. Smith (in "The Records of the School 

 of Mines " : Vol. I., pt. iii., 1856) when writing of the lodes of 

 Moneyteige and Ballycoog, states that he is " inclined to infer 

 that it was the back or upper part of these lodes, the waste of 

 which furnished the greater part of the alluvial metallic sub- 

 stances found in the valley below, and amongst them the gold." 

 Weaver had made unsuccessful trials on these lodes, and the 

 Carysfort company were not more fortunate in their trials on these 

 and many others in the district, not even a trace of gold being 

 found. So that unless the gold was rich in the upper portions, 

 and altogether absent in the parts remaining, it is difficult to feel 

 convinced that these are the sources, although it must be remem- 

 bered that the pyrites at Ballymurtagh and Connary, further 

 eastward on the same mineral channel, are slightly auriferous. 



At a meeting of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland, in 

 1865, when a discussion took place on this district, it seems to 

 have been generally supposed that the matrix of the gold would 

 be found in the quartz reefs of the district. 



* There is a deep cut through the village of Ballinasilloge down to the fotd, btit there 

 is no record by whom executed — probably by Crockford. 



