3 Wee te 
REPORTS FROM THE SECTIONS. 255 
Note on the Boorook Silver Ore. 
By W. A. Dixon, F.C.S., F.1.C., Lecturer on Chemistry, 
Sydney School of Arts, 
[Read before the Chemical Section, 20 November, 1878.] 
As anew mining industry which promises to be soon of con- 
siderable importance has during the last few months begun to 
be developed in the Colony, I have thongs it might be of some 
interest to lay before you a short réswmé of what has been done at 
the Boorook silver lodes. I have had a considerable number of 
samples of the ores from the different reefs, &c., submitted to me 
for examination by the Mining Department, and can 
show some specimens with assays. 
Boorook is situated on the eastern fall of the Main mort 
nge 
from Tenterfield. The country is very mountainous, rear 
geological formation is sandstone, granite, and slate, the last a 
which is reported to contain marine fossils. The ripe 
reefs Pia to be found near the junction of the s 
granite 
ome seven or eight years ago a reef named the “ Nil Desper- 
andum” was discovered and opened out as agold mine,a shaft being 
sunk to some depth, and two tons of the pee stone sent to the 
Mint in Sydney for treatment. The first ton from near 
surface yielded 60oz. of gold and 45oz. of silver, and the second 
from the 40ft. level yielded 150o0z. of precious metals, the propor- 
tion of each being about the same as the first. On sinking 
urther into the reef however, the stone became poorer, and as the 
discovery of the rich tin ore deposits was made at this time, the 
CHEN was abandoned for what promised to be a more lucrative 
unde ing. 
On the “Addison reef a shallow shaft had also been sunk, but 
nothing seems to have been done with it, and it was the appear- 
ance of ox stuff removed from this shaft that induced the present 
to proceed with the exploration and put up a smal] machine 
for its treatment. This reef runs into a steep hill which rises at 
an angle of 30° or 35°; aa at about a "De oe" and fifty feet 
the base an opening has been made, and the reef is there 
found to be six feet wide, with well defined walls. | A hundred 
‘feet higher up another opening has been made, and the reef is 
there of the same width and character. Rabin Be chains north 
is the original shaft, where the reef i is three feet 
