Bae Miscellaneous. 
The fact that minute portions of gold do exist in various points in 
the Mittagong region has long been known to me ; and in the ‘ Re- 
searches in the Southern Gold-fields,’ I have, at pages 44, 245, and 
249, pointed out not only its probable occurrence there, but also at 
the base of the Carboniferous formation at Wingelo, where it was 
found by Sir T.S. Mitchell (and near which it has been worked since 
that time), as well as on the Hawkesbury rocks themselves, as at 
St. Leonard’s, not far from my residence (though in quantity too 
minute for profit), and at Govett’s Leap, on the Grose River, in a 
small conglomerate of quartz pebbles cemented by iron, such as 
covers much of the surface near the reported new gold-field. In 
these instances the gold is only procurable by analysis. ‘This con- 
dition of things should be sufficient to prevent the expectation of an 
alluvial gold-field derivable from our sandstone beds; though there 
is nothing to prevent the possibility of gold over them, if there be 
in the vicinity true gold-bearing rocks of sufficient richness to allow 
a local drift worth working. 
I come now to my examination of a portion of gold from the 
Nepean diggings, procured during Mr. Commissioner Johnson’s visit, 
and which, together with the clays in which it is said to occur, I 
have minutely” scrutinized. 
The yellowish-white clay, or washing stuff, turned out to be a eol- 
lection of very minute clear atoms of quartz, some of them coloured 
by iron, and all bound together by a yellow clay, which when dry 
gives a character to the mass. I could detect no gold in it, nor other 
metal. 
The darker clay has nothing in common with slate of any kind, 
and I do not believe any will be found below it. 
The dust is so fine that the greater part is microscopic. By care- 
ful examination under the instrument, I detected not only gold, but 
platinum (white, hard, and magnetic); ode of tin, corundum, ruby, 
topaz; specular, titaniferous, and magnetic iron. ‘The gold particles 
_were the largest, next were corundum and platinum. ‘The first was 
in rough but bright rounded flakes, scarcely at all abraded, and be- 
traying only a few scratches ; so that it had probably only drifted 
avery short distance from its matrix, which certainly was not a 
quartz reef. 
Iuse this occasion to lay before the public some facts recently 
ascertained, which may be of use. 
Independently of the alluvial or drift gold of the Australian dig- 
gings, of the gold extracted from the quartz reefs of the Silurian 
formation, which are the great sources of wealth, and from the 
‘cement’ of quartz pebbles and ironstone which is so common in 
certain parts of the Carboniferous formation, and of the other minor 
habitats referred to above, I have discovered gold in the quartz 
pebbles of the shelly caleareous Secondary rocks of Queensland. So 
that even in Australia gold is known to eaist in the Tertzary, Secondary, 
and Paleozoic formations. My discovery of gold in the Secondary 
fossiliferous rock of the Fitzroy Downs, and the fact that gold has 
been also found in alluvia over Secondary rocks at the head of the 
