1853.] WATHEN — GOLD FIELDS OF VICTORIA, 75 



chiefly been derived from two valleys with their lateral gullies and 

 ravines. These valleys are known by the names of the streams or 

 " creeks " that run through them. One of these, Forest Creek, takes 

 its rise in Mount Alexander itself; the other, Fryer's Creek, has its 

 source in the high and broken ranges of slate that environ the Mount. 

 Both Creeks are tributaries of the River Loddon. The workings ex- 

 tend five or six miles along the valley of Fryer's Creek, and about ten 

 along that of Forest Creek. At Fryer's Creek gold has been found in 

 large quantities beneath the bed of the stream, near its source, in the 

 upland gullies. Forest Creek, on the contrary, appears to grow barren 

 as it approaches the higher granite country, where it originates. On 

 the banks of the River Loddon gold is found in small quantities, 

 lodged in the crevices of the rocks, but no large deposits have been 

 met with on the river, and even the stream into which Forest Creek 

 runs, though itself only a feeder of the Loddon, proves far less rich 

 than Forest Creek and its mountain affluents. In short, it would 

 seem that the gold had been arrested in the small mountain ravines 

 and gullies, and was never washed down to the large streams. Auri- 

 ferous sands on river-banks or in alluvial plains are unknown in the 

 Colony. When within 12 inches of the surface, the gold is disse- 

 minated in a quartzose gravel ; when found at lower depths, it is 

 almost always imbedded in clay, usually of a very tenacious kind. 



Ballarat gold-field. — The Ballarat gold-field, which is about fifty- 

 five miles north-west of Geelong and Port Philip Bay, lies at the junc- 

 tion of the slates with the trappean country, about seven miles from 

 an extinct and now forest-grown volcano, known as Mount Boninyong. 

 A second similar black volcanic mount rises out of the slate ranges, 

 about ten miles due north of Boninyong. Granite crops out in small 

 patches between the two Mounts. 



This auriferous tract is united to that of Mount Alexander by a 

 succession of similar dark forested ranges, rough, rocky, and sterile, 

 strewn over with quartz, and consisting of the same series of mica- 

 ceous, flinty, and clay-slates. 



Volcanic tract. — At the western base of these sombre hills lies a 

 large tract of the most fertile and beautiful country — the garden of 

 Australia Felix, — the rich soil of which is the product of decomposed 

 lava. These park-like plains, sprinkled over with groups of trees, 

 are diversified by numerous domelike lava hills, without trees, but of 

 the richest verdure. I have counted no less than 24 of these re- 

 markable bold hills from the summit of one of them. The south 

 and east sides are commonly steeper than the others. They are 

 usually flat at the top ; but in one of them, which I named Mount 

 Lyell after the illustrious geologist, there is a small crater, which 

 had the reputation of being fathomless, but which I found to be in 

 fact about 50 feet deep, consisting of an upper cup or crater about 

 1 5 feet in diameter, contracting below into a narrow rocky shaft or 

 well, 30 feet deep and 3 or 4 wide. The freshness of the traces of 

 the flow of the lava, which is of a soft and perishable kind, indicates 

 that the epoch of igneous action cannot be very remote. Altogether 



