1854.] RUBIDGE — GOLD IN SOUTH AFRICA. 5 



hammered to pieces by a party from Burgher's Dorp, and a small 

 piece of gold had been found imbedded in the mass. On examina- 

 tion I found it to be a mass of hard calcareous sandstone imbedded 

 in the igneous rock. The stratified rocks adjacent to the dyke were 

 the brownish-blue perishable sandstone described above, without any 

 lime. Was this lump a mass of the nodules altered by heat ? Small 

 veins of calcareous spar intersected it, as usual in the nodules. 



I rode across the valley, about a mile and a half broad, to examine 

 the other dyke (T U). I found its direction to be 4° west of mag- 

 netic north. Like the former, it was cut through by a more recent 

 E. and W. dyke, not quite so broad, the N. and S. dyke being about 

 12 feet broad, the other 8 feet. About 60 feet from the junction 

 two Englishmen had sunk a pit (B) which gave one a good view of 

 the structure of the dyke. It was composed of the usual compact 

 blue syenite of the narrow dykes of this formation. The first 5 or 

 6 feet of the rock was somewhat decomposed, but lower down it was 

 but little altered. A vein of quartz, varying from 2 inches to 2 feet, 

 traversed the dyke longitudinally nearly in the middle. This quartz 

 was opaque, and had numeroiis small cavities in which little masses 

 of gold were occasionally found ; but so poor was the vein, that a 

 large sackful, part of which was knocked out with a hammer by 

 myself, yielded only two little bits of gold, not weighing together 

 10 grains. At about 300 yards to the south was another pit (C), sunk 

 by a party from Burgher's Dorp, on the same vein. They too had 

 found several nuggets, but the quantity gained was so small that the 

 pit was abandoned after reaching the depth of 15 feet. 



The stratified rocks were the same as those at the other dyke, 

 unaltered in position, and with little or no traces of the action of heat. 

 They were visible only by digging away the soil, as the dyke pro- 

 jected merely a few feet above the level of the plain, so that only a 

 narrow ridge of igneous rock formed the margin of the valley. 



It appears to me quite certain that the gold must be in situ in the 

 quartz vein ; for, beside the fact that no other than " Dicynodon 

 rocks " are found within 200 miles, at least, of the spot, I cannot 

 conceive that the metal could get into the vein by mechanical means, 

 especially as the dyke is in some parts the most elevated land in the 

 neighbourhood ; and the valley is separated from the Caledon River, 

 the only source of convection from a distance (at present existing), 

 by a high range of hills, at least 1500 feet high. Besides, in all the 

 spots pointed out to me as sources of gold in situ, I found the dykes 

 meridian-directed. The sketch shows this to be the case at Smith- 

 field ; it was so at the Kraai river near Aliwal, and at the Kroomberg. 

 It was only in northern-directed dykes that I found quartz in regular 

 veins. At the Kraai river the gold was found in quartz surrounding 

 a mass of the calcareous sandstone, like that at the junction of the 

 two dykes at the jackal's hole (A). There was no vein. 



Near the centre of the valley (D), a hole had been sunk through 

 the alluvial soil to the depth of 1 5 feet, when a layer of coarse gravel 

 was found, resting on clay. This layer yielded several nuggets. 

 Another hole was in progress of digging near the former, the water 



