1859.] eosales ^ballaaeat gold-field, 497 



Janfaey 19, 1859. 



John Cavafy, Esq., "Westbourne Terrace ; William Whitaker, 

 B.A. Lond., Geol. Survey of Great Britain; and T. W. Atkinson, Esq., 

 Old Bromiiton, were elected Fellows . 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On the Gold-fields o/Ballaarat and Ceeswick Ceeek. 

 By H. EosALES, Esq. 



(In a letter* to W. W. Smyth, Esq., Sec. G.S.) 

 [Plate XV.] 



I AM not in a position to give any data concerning zoological fossil 

 remains in the auriferous deposits, but I have seen the bottom of the 

 lava entangling not mere stems, but trunks of trees, which I be- 

 lieve to be of the same class as those which still grow in this con- 

 tinent. These were found in the " Eldorado " and '• United Miners' 

 Claims " at a depth of upwards of 300 feet below the surface. These 

 *' claims" are situated on the '^Sebastopol charriagef." Again, 

 another, and perhaps one of the most interesting organic remains, is 

 the coneii: of a " She-Oak" (Casuarina), perfectly charred and inter- 

 woven with white pyrites, which was foimd, along with charred 

 trunks of trees and other vegetable matter, by my friend Mr. Benitua 

 on the " Black-clay Lead," which is the deex^ auriferous channel at 

 Creswick, where the deposit is reached at the depth of 70-90 feet, 

 and runs under the basalt. In the deep " leads " of Ballaarat large 

 trunks of trees and other charred vegetable matter are constantly to 

 be found ; in fact this is characteristic of all the channels as soon as 

 they run into deep groimd. 



AH this leads me to conclude, as you say in your letter, " that 

 the auiiferous alluvium is a most interesting subject to link early 



* Dated BaUaarat, Sept. 13, 1858. 



t The first-fomid stem entangled in the basalt was met with at the j miction 

 of the "Frenchman's" and "White Horse" Leads in the "Eldorado" Claim, at 

 305 feet from the surface. It was still fii*mly rooted in the slate, surrounded 

 up to the height of 8 feet by the alluvium of the auriferous channel, and then 

 entangled in the oldest basalt-flow yet known (the "4th rock" in miner's par- 

 lance), to an imknown height. The basalt is amygdaloidal (honey-combed), of a 

 dark-greyish colovir, and rests on the alluvial deposits and on the schists, which 

 at the contact are broken up into a breccia ; between both rocks there is a thin 

 layer, from 3 to 6 inches thick, of black clay, containing more or less charred 

 matter. I could not ascertain what influence the basalt had had in its contact 

 with the alluvial deposit. At the point referred to, the course of the "French- 

 man's Lead " is N. 30° W., that of the " Wliite Horse Lead " W. 9° S., and after 

 the junction the com'se of the " Sebastopol " auriferous mainchannel is W. 17° N. 

 The trmik of the tree is 3 feet in diameter in the direction of the " White Horse," 

 2^ feet in that of " Frenchman's" Lead, and is perfectly preserved in a charred 

 state. In the claim of the "United Miners" there are two more trunks; one 

 also perfectly preserved, but the other, which when foimd contained a quantity 

 of white pyrites, is now completely destroyed ; however in the basalt there still 

 remains the cylindi'ical vacuum, where there was once a tree. The " United 

 Miners' " Claim is 345 feet deep in the gutter at the lower end of the claim. 



I See also Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xiv, p. 541.— Edit. 



