128 MR. W, S. JEVONS : REMARKS 



to the presence of gold in the Australian rocks. Since 

 then most favourable localities have been well prospected, 

 or tested for alluvial gold by the many thousands of 

 experienced diggers with whom Victoria now abounds. I 

 regard it as certain, therefore, that no alluvial deposits, 

 equally rich and equally accessible, will ever be laid open 

 in future. But it is by no means certain that great and 

 rich leads of gold may not exist in many places still con- 

 cealed by the great thickness of the overlying alluvium, or 

 by a portion of the basaltic formation or sheet of lava. 

 Such leads would be comparable to the new and deep 

 leads beneath the new town of Ballaarat, and would be 

 discovered only by a very lucky chance, or by a skilful 

 and expensive search. From the mode in which schistose 

 hills, bearing fine auriferous reefs, here and there only 

 just appear through the basaltic formation, as at Clunes 

 and Melbourne, we may consider it very possible that 

 complete gold districts may lie hidden, perhaps for ever, 

 at considerable depths beneath other parts of the basaltic 

 plain. Not much, perhaps, is to be hoped from the future 

 discovery of alluvial gold. 



The chief diggings of Victoria have, during the past 

 eight years, been so vigorously undermined and turned up 

 by small parties of miners that scarcely a square yard of 

 untouched auriferous ground is left — at least such ground 

 as would have formerly been considered profitable to men 

 without experience and means of undertaking large works. 

 But these diggings are by no means exhausted. The 

 miners, learning the advantages of co-operation and the use 

 of machinery, find that masses of alluvium, only slightly 

 auriferous, now afibrd a handsome and also a steady profit. 

 Ground exhausted in the old style is being reworked in a 

 much more complete manner, and even the tailings, or 

 refuse from the cradles of previous diggers, is valuable to 

 those provided with more improved washing apparatus. 



