154 THE MINERALS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



PART I. 



METALLIC MINERALS. 

 Gold. 



Only one true mineral species of gold has up to the present been 

 found in New South Wales, and that is : — 



Native Gold. 



Cubical system. Well developed crystals are very rare and are 

 never of large size, seldom exceeding J-inch in diameter, and the 

 faces are usually more or less cavernous ; the most common form 

 are the octohedron and rhombic dodekahedron ; single and detached 

 crystals are seldom found, they are usually attached end to end, 

 forming strings, wires, and branching or aborescent forms. A 

 beautiful branching tree like group of large rhombic doclekahedral 

 crystals ' weighing some 20 oz. was formerly to be seen in the 

 Australian Museum collection, but the specimen has been stolen, 

 so that it is unfortunately lost to science. Occasionally elongated 

 crystals of rhombic dodekahedra are met with, arranged in columnar 

 groups very similar to groups of basaltic columns. As with other 

 minerals, the smaller crystals are usually the most perfect. Fili- 

 form, reticulated, and spongy shapes are common; but more so are 

 irregular plates, scales, and strings, which interpenetrate the matrix 

 in every direction. Sometimes, as observed by Mr. C. S. Wilkinson 

 at a mine near Wagga Wagga, the plates are so exceedingly thin 

 that they form mere films like gold-leaf, and in this particular 

 instance the films run both between and across the laminae of the 

 red-coloured slate in which they occur. Then again, gold occurs 

 in New South Wales, as elsewhere, so finely divided and equally 

 diffused throughout the matrix as to be invisible even by the aid 

 of a lens. 



As alluvial gold it occurs in more or less rounded and water- 

 worn flattened grains, scales, and pebbles or nuggets. The largest 

 nuggets discovered in Australia have been found in Victoria, none 

 at all to compare with them in size have been in New South 

 Wales. 



Examples of New South Wales Nuggets. 



No. 1. Found in July, 1851, by a native boy, amongst a heap 

 of quartz, at Meroo Creek or Louisa Creek, River Turon, 53 miles 



