74 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 2^ 



2. On the Gold Fields of Victoria or Port Philip. 

 By G. H. Wathen, Esq., Mining Engineer. 



[Communicated by P. N. Johnson, Esq., F.G.S.] 



General DescrijJtion, Geogi-apMcal and Geological. — A chain of 

 mountains, or rather a series of distinct ranges, runs round the south- 

 eastern corner of Austraha, nearly parallel to the coast line, and from 

 fifty to eighty miles from the sea, forming part of the main chain of 

 the continent, and rising at its highest summit. Mount Kosciusko, to 

 fiSOO feet above the sea-level. This mountain chain in Victoria con- 

 sists of clay-slates, mica-slates, and flinty slates, in successive steps, 

 forming collectively a recurring series somewhat thus — 



Fig. 1 . — Diagram showing a Section through Hills hi the Australian 



Pyrenees. 



Granite. Clay-slate, mica-slate, &c. Granite. Clay-slate, &c. 



The slates are nearly or quite vertical, with a north and south 

 strike, and are intersected by numerous quartz-veins, running at an 

 acute angle -with the slates. Vast plains of trap, forming high table- 

 lands, run up to the base of the mountains and probably cover their 

 lower slopes. It is in the valleys and gullies of these mountains, and 

 not very far from their junction with the trappean plains, that the 

 rich deposits of gold are found. The auriferous districts are com- 

 monly broken by deep valleys and precipitous steeps. The hills are 

 thickly forested ; the soil poor and gravelly, and the surface strewn 

 with angular fragments of white quartz. 



Gold-fields. — Gold has been found at several points remote from 

 each other along this zone of mountains ; but incomparably the richest 

 deposits hitherto opened in the Colony of Victoria, and indeed in the 

 entire continent, are those of Ballarat and Mount Alexander, the 

 latter far exceeding the former in extent and richness, while even the 

 former is said by Califomian miners to surpass in richness and yield 

 all that they have witnessed in that region of gold. 



Mount Alexander gold-field. — Mount Alexander lies in latitude 37° 

 South, longitude 144° 20' East, and is about 75 miles north-west of 

 Melbourne. It was named by the first explorers Mount Byng, and 

 is thus distinguished in many maps. It is a rocky granitic mountain, 

 with a rugged flattened outline, towering some hundreds of feet above 

 the summits of the forested ranges of slate-rocks which surround it, 

 and of which it is the centre and nucleus. 



The enormous amount of gold which this district has yielded has 



