Notes on the Area of Intrusive Rocks at Dargo. 14T 



zoic sediments. In Plate II., fig. 1, I have given a diagram 

 of one of these veins, where it had been laid open by a shaft 

 close to the contact. When these quartz veins were dis- 

 covered to be much mineralised, and to contain some gold, a 

 " no liability company" was formed to work them. A shaft 

 was sunk, and a tunnel was driven along the course of one 

 of the larger reefs. Trial crushings were taken out at three 

 different places, and tested at the Good Hope battery at 

 Grant, with a yield of 11 dwts. to the ton ; at the Normanby 

 battery, yielding 8 dwts. to the ton ; and the third at the 

 Budgee Budgee mine, giving a return of 15 dwts. to the 

 ton of stone. Finally a favourable report was made as to 

 the prospects of the mine by an expert, and upon this a 

 steam-engine, driving a battery of ten stampers, was erected, 

 and a considerable amount of preliminary work was done. 

 Hereupon a crushing was had from the mine, with the result, 

 according to some statements, of 1 dwt. per ton, and, accord- 

 ing to others, of nothing at all. The whole enterprise was 

 now dropped, the company was wound up, and the battery 

 was sold and removed elsewhere, after an expenditure of 

 about £2500. It is not proved, however, that these reefs 

 at Eureka are so absolutely valueless as has been, assumed 

 They are highly mineralised, and the appliances were 

 probably — as was the case elsewhere in the district — 

 not adapted to the treatment of such stone. Moreover, the 

 trial crushings, if bona fide, show that some of the veins 

 were auriferous, although not in a great degree, yet far more 

 so than the one crushing made at the Eureka battery would 

 indicate. 



The ill-success which in the past has attended attempts to 

 work such reefs as those at Dargo and its neighbourhood 

 makes it desirable to trace out the causes of failure, and also 

 to ascertain whether it might not be possible, in the future, 

 to work them remuneratively. Conclusions arrived at by 

 considering these cases will also apply to other similar 

 auriferous reefs in Gippsland. 



It is well to say that the experience of the past, taken as 

 a whole, has been unfavourable. In no single instance with 

 which I am acquainted have such reefs as these been worked 

 at a profit by incorporated companies. The Exhibition 

 mine is not an exception, for no profit has been made, and the 

 return to the shareholders of their expenditure on machinery 

 and labour is due, as I see it, to the fact that the mine has 

 been managed and worked in the greatest part by the share- 



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