458 SelwT/n — On Quarto-Reefs and Gold-Drifts. 



First. — That these particular drifts are clearly antecedent in date 

 to the upper and middle marine Miocene beds, under which they 

 have now been traced, and, therefore, that they are far older than 

 the lowest Pliocene gravels, to which age the deep-lead gravels of 

 Ballaarat, the White Hills of Bendigo, and other similar rich gold- 

 bearing gravels have been referred. 



Second. — That they do not probably contain gold in paying quan- 

 tity, because, as I believe, they are derived from the abrasion of 

 quartz veins, that themselves contained little or no gold, and that 

 were probably formed by forces in operation as long prior to those 

 which produced the gold-bearing veins, as the denudations, pro- 

 ducing the barren Miocene gravels, were prior to those which gave 

 rise to the Pliocene productive ones. 



I will now briefly state the facts which have led to these con- 

 clusions. 



Diuing the progress of the Geological Survey, deposits from a 

 mere capping, to over 300 feet thick, have been met with in several 

 localities, from sea-level to an elevation of 4000 feet. These consist 

 of beds of clay, sand, "cement" or conglomerate, gravel, and large 

 boulders, — the gravel and boidders, much water- worn and rounded, 

 and composed either of quartz, quartz-rock or hard silicious sand- 

 stone. They rest on the ordinary slates and sandstones (Silurian) 

 of the gold-fields, and are often in the vicinity of rich gold-bearing 

 quartz-reefs. 



Till quite recently I have considered these deposits to be true 

 Older Pliocene gold- drifts, or of the same age as the rich lower drifts 

 of Bendigo, Epsom, Ballaarat, Castle-maine, and other gold-fields, 

 all of which drifts they very closely resemble, both in lithological 

 character and geological position. Holding this opinion, I have 

 hitherto been at a loss to explain why they had in no instance been 

 found to contain gold in j)aying quantity. Numerous shafts had been 

 sunk and levels driven in them in the most likely places in various 

 localities, both by miners and by the Greological Survey parties, 

 with a view to develop their supposed auriferous contents, but 

 always with the same unsuccessful result. 



In the neighbourhood of Steiglitz especially, they occur in close 

 proximity to rich quartz-reefs ; and the more recent alluvial deposits 

 near the same reefs are also auriferous, while every attempt, and 

 many have been made, to find paying gold in the older gravels 

 either on the hills or in the valleys, has proved unsuccessful. The 

 connection of these old unproductive Miocene gravels of the Steiglitz 

 gold-fields, with the lower gravels of the Grolden Rivers, Tea-tree 

 Creek, the Upper Moorabool, Parwan Creek, Bacchus Marsh, and 

 Ballan, has not yet been fully mapped out; but the preliminary 

 examination recently made has, I believe, clearly established that 

 they all belong to the same Miocene period ; and, if so, I ventm-e to 

 predict, they will all prove equally unproductive. At th§ Tea-tree 

 Creek, and all along the valley of the Moorabool, what I believe to 

 be the true Older Pliocene gold-gravel has been worked, and it rests 

 directly on what I now term the non-auriferous Miocene gravel. 



