324 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [March 8, 



surface of tlie rock tomorrow ; and, having with me some practical 

 diggers who understand what is termed "driving," I hope to be able 

 soon to find something of a heavier nature than what has yet been 

 washed. 



One good nugget of pure gold being found would soon bring back 

 to the place those who have left it ; and, the concurrent opinion of 

 Californian and Australian diggers being that the gold is plentiful 

 here, could the bed-rock be reached, I have hopes that by adopting 

 the plan of driving on the hill-sides along the surface, instead of 

 sinking deep shafts, the water will not be found so much an impedi- 

 ment, and the work successfully carried on in all seasons. The pro- 

 spectors who are now here acquiesce in the opinion, and are prepared 

 to commence tumielling into the hill immediately. 



I am, &c., 



Charles Heapley. 



Coromandel, May 24th, 1853. 



[From Mr. Swainson's * notice of the Coromandel gold district, it 

 appears that the granite of the Dividing Range is flanked by vertical 

 schists, and the range is skirted by conglomerates ; that volcanic 

 rocks abound, the whole district having been disturbed by trappean 

 intrusions, and the basalts sometimes capping hills that rival the 

 granitic peaks ; that quartz-dykes are reported to exist ; that the 

 clayey banks of the Kapanga River are auriferous, as well as its 

 gravelly bed, the lowest parts of the deposits being the richest ; and 

 that the auriferous detritus contains quartz -blocks and fragments of 

 granite, slate, and trap-rock. — Ed. Q. J.] 



5. On the Geological Formation and the Gold-bearing 

 Rocks of the Colony of Victoria. By Evan Hopkins, 

 Esq., F.G.S. 



[Abstract.] 



(This communication has been published in full in a pamphlet, entitled " On the 

 Geology of the Gold-bearing Rocks of the World, and the Gold-fields of Vic- 

 toria." Melbourne, 1853, 8vo. With four Lithograph Plates of Sections.) 



With this communication, the author laid before the Society, and 

 explained, a geological section of this south-eastern portion of Au- 

 stralia, extending from the Glenelg River, on the west, to beyond 

 Mount Kosciusko, in the Australian Alps, on the east. This section 

 exhibited the structure of this region as formed of great parallel bands 

 of schistose and granitic rocks, ha\4ng a north and south bearing 

 and a vertical position. Along the line of section first appear the 

 limestone-beds of the Glenelg Valley, resting on the foot of Mount 

 William, in the Grampians, which consists of granite, capped by 

 sandstone formed of the reconsolidated decomposed granite. Mount 



* Swainson's New Zealand, 8vo, p. 91. 



