146 Notes on the Area of Intrusive Rocks at Dargo. 



gold has Lad its source in the Silurian, metamorphic, or 

 igneous rocks, or in connection with them.* 



In two other places not far from Dargo other similar 

 contact reefs have been opened and partly worked, one at 

 Granite Creek, at the extreme western end of the series of 

 intrusive areas, and the other at the extreme eastern end, at 

 Tucker Creek. 



A few words about them will be of use in truly estimating 

 the evidence given by the Exhibition mine. The Budgee 

 Budgee mine at Gi'anite Creek in so far resembles the 

 Exhibition mine that it is at the contact of the quartz 

 diorites, with presumably Silurian sediments. But the 

 contact plane has been denuded, and the quartz lode is found 

 in the plutonic rock. The strike of the lode is east and west, 

 dipping from 40 degs. to 50 degs. to the north. When I 

 visited the mine while it was being worked, several years ago, 

 I found a tunnel driven in the western side of Granite 

 Creek, on the course of the lode. The quartz vein being 

 worked was from 6 to 9 inches wide ; but it only formed 

 part of the lode, which I found to be nearly 3 feet between 

 the walls. I have given a diagram of the lode as I then saw 

 it at the face of the tunnel in fig. 2, Plate II. 



An incorporated company was formed to work this mine. 

 Machinery was erected of a kind not adapted to the nature 

 of the stone to be operated on. A good deal of work was done, 

 with little result, and finally the company was wound up, 

 and the mine abandoned. At the present time the mine has 

 been re-occupied by a party of working miners. 



The standard of the gold at this place is somewhat low, 

 and falls in near to that obtaining in other igneous or 

 metamorphic areas in Gippsland. According to information 

 . obligingly communicated to me by Mr. Horace Rich, of Sale, 

 a former shareholder in the Budgee Budgee Company, the 

 gold from that mine was worth £3 I7s. A sample of alluvial 

 gold which I examined from Granite Creek, close to this mine, 

 I found to be composed of 90'05 per cent, of gold, and 9*95 

 per cent, of silver. 



At the sources of Tucker Creek, a small stream which 

 flows into the Wentworth River, there are a number of 

 quartz veins at the contact of the quartz diorites and paleo- 



* Henwood makes the remark in " Observations on Metalliferous Deposits" 

 (Transactions of K. G. S. of Cornwall, Vol. VIII., p. 359) that in Brazil 

 " detrital gold ... is always of better quality than mine gold of the 

 neighbourhood." 



