PORSEDYKE. 6 1 



this shaft a drive runs to the east at a depth of 80 feet ; reef quartz 

 is said to have been found in this drive and to have been followed 

 down for some distance ; at the time of my visit, however, the drive 

 was full of foul air and all attempts to enter it failed ; it was there- 

 fore impossible to obtain samples from the lode. I was, however, 

 shown some quartz at the surface which was said to have come from 

 this level. This quartz is of a rich blue colour and contains felspar, 

 iron pyrites and hypersthene ; it is quite different from the reef 

 seen at the surface and is, as a matter of fact, not reef quartz but 

 one of the contemporaneous veins so common in the charnockite and 

 pyroxenite, which is the country-rock at this portion of the shaft. 



From the bottom of the shaft (141 feet) another drive has been 

 run tor a short distance to the east, but there is no trace of reef in 

 this level, which is being driven through tough pyroxenite. 



The third shaft, which is still further to the south, has been sunk 

 just beside (west of) an outcrop of the reef. 



Southern shaft. i,, ., , . , . 



I he old workings here were extensive and 



numerous, but no trace of reef has been found below ground. The 



shaft has a vertical depth of about 80 feet, and from the base a 



drive has been run to the east for a distance of 160 feet, entirely 



through pyroxenite, but no reef has been struck. 



The country-rock in which the reef occurs at the surface is 



Country-rock. quartz-chlorite schist, and like the rock of 



?Dharwar. Bensibetta and other auriferous localities in 



this district is probably of Dharwar age. But almost the whole of 



the ridge in which the outcrop occurs is com- 

 Chiefly pyroxenite. 



posed of a coarse pyroxenite, and it would 



seem that the small band of Dharwars with its accompanying reef 



has been caught up by the intruding- basic 



Probably intrusive. . ° 



rock and is therefore possibly merely a small 

 isolated patch. The present levels which are being run in this mine 

 are, as already stated, being driven through tough pyroxenite, and as 

 this must involve much labour and expense with no certainty of 



( 61 ) 



