48 Auriferous Districts of 



" At the junction of Oxley Creek and the Flinders, on the 

 east bank of the latter, cliffs of horizontal sandstone and con- 

 glomerate mark the boundary of what is called the ' desert 

 country,' [Whether these rocks belong in part or at all to a 

 Carboniferous formation, Mr. Daintree does not state ; but I- 

 have in my collections a coarse ferruginous quartz grit from the 

 Table-land between the Cape and Flinders, and specimens of 

 coal from the junction of Jardine's Creek, and fossilised wood 

 from the delta of the Cloncurry and Flinders. These were 

 brought to me by Mr. J. Atkinson. There is, therefore, a pro- 

 bability that Coal-bearing beds do exist (a point on which Mr. 

 Daintree expresses a doubt) below the fossiliferous secondary 

 strata about O'Connell Creek, Walker's Creek, and Eichmond 

 Downs.] 



" The cliffs above alluded to run parallel with the Cape Eange, 

 and form the Southern boundary of the Auriferous belt under 

 discussion. 



" The area thus to be worked as " Cape Diggings" will be 70 

 miles long by from 10 to 15 broad." 



" It is bounded on the N.W. by the lava of "Walker's Plains ; 

 on the North by the Syenite between Fletcher's Creek and the 

 Cape ; on the South by the Sandstone and Conglomerate of the 

 desert. The South-eastern boundary is not yet determined ; but 

 it will be in that direction, that deep leads will have to be looked 

 for. the country being in that region fiat, as far as the junction with 

 the Campaspe and the Cape, a distance of 50 or 60 miles. 



" There were in the middle of July, about 100 miners at work 

 in two gullies called Specimen and Golden. The former of these 

 rises in Mount Eemarkable, an isolated hill at the south-eastern 

 formation of the Auriferous range which extends from Mount 

 Three Heads. 



" The character of the precious metal found in this gully is of 

 low standard, pale in colour and very little waterworn, particles 

 of the matrix adhering to nearly all the nuggets and to much of 

 the fine gold. This matrix is semi-transparent quartz, from 

 quartz leaders, quartzose gneiss, quartz and felspar, felspar and 

 brown oxide of iron. 



[Here we have a remarkable agreement with the characteristics 

 of gold in some of the Syenitic and Granitic gold fields of New 

 South Wales, especially in one species of gold, which metal, so 

 far as our experience has gone, is found to become of lower 

 standard value as we proceed northwards. The tables compiled 

 by the officers of the Mint and published in the Exhibition 

 Catalogues, will establish this remarkable fact.] 



Mr. Daintree says : " I am under the impression that no true 

 \fissure reefs' will be found on the Cape, the rocks being chiefly 

 Metamorphic, and their mineral matter having been concentrated 



