8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Nov. 6, 



The tin-dish prospects of granite detritus I saw washed from a 

 number of places gave per dish (about 20 lbs. weight) from 3 ounces 

 to above 2 lbs. weight of ore, composed of but very slightly abraded, 

 more or less perfect crystals and crystalline particles, from the size of 

 a mustard seed to that of a small hazel-nut. Along a large ditch cut 

 for the purpose of ground-sluicing, the black tin-crystals could easily 

 be seen in the detritus on either side. The older drift contains tin- 

 ore of generally finer grain, and much waterworn throughout, but is 

 rather poor to within about 1 foot of the granite bottom. This 

 bottom layer, however, is very rich in places, regular black seams 

 of the ore being there observable, and some tin-dish prospects having 

 yielded up to 6 lbs. weight of it. 



On the north side of the range, not far from the basalt boundary, 

 lies a deserted saw-pit many years old, in the stuff excavated from 

 which rather coarse tin-ore particles were exposed in abundance 

 after the first rain, but attracted not the slightest notice, as their 

 nature was unknown. Mr. D. Brown, of Sydney, an enterprising 

 mining prospector, claims to have been the first who recognized the 

 ore, during one of his prospecting trips ; he, with others, took up the 

 land under lease from the Government; and it has since become the 

 property of the present Elsmore tin-mining Company, who, however, 

 are rather tardy in their operations to reap the valuable mineral 

 harvest so profusely displayed over the field. Although nearly a 

 year in existence, very little work has as yet been done on the lodes ; 

 and in order to wash the drift, the erection of a powerful engine with 

 force-pump attached, for forcing the water from the river into a 

 reservoir constructed on the top of the range, is only nearing its com- 

 pletion. The publicity given to the tin-ore discovery by the 

 formation of the Company had the effect of leading to energetic pro- 

 specting not only in the immediate neighbourhood of the Elsmore 

 ground, but, as success followed success, further and further away from 

 it ; and at the present moment it may be said that for perhaps 150 miles 

 along the dividing range, far into Queensland, all the principal creeks 

 and their branches, rising in or traversing granite-country, have been 

 proved to be more or less richly stanniferous, whilst a number of 

 rich veins of the ore have been found in the bounding ranges of 

 several. 



One of these more recent discoveries which I inspected is at the 

 Glen Creek, about 40 miles northward of the Elsmore mine. The tin- 

 bearing ground commences here at a point where the Glen Creek, 

 which rises in high basaltic tableland, begins forcing its way for 

 about 20 miles through a belt of granite and metamorphic-schist 

 ranges, its tortuous course presenting a narrow, precipitous, in 

 places gorge-like valley ; hence its name. Both the beds and tribu- 

 taries, and the surface-detritus of the bounding ranges contain tin- 

 ore in variable quantities, all the way down the glen ; but one of the 

 richer localities (to which these remarks more especially refer) lies 

 about 8 miles from the point of commencement. Here for about li 

 mile along the course of the creek (E. and W.), the cross section of 

 the valley is as given in the sketch (fig. 2) : — 



