152 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



The principal vein, AA, through so much of its en- 

 tire length as has been laid open, appears of a most even 

 and uniform character, and consists of blocks of quartz, 

 occasionally quite white, but more frequently blue, 

 or rendered yellow and green by oxide of iron, and 

 generally much cracked, and filled in the interstices 

 with oxide of iron,^so as to make even this hard part of 

 the vein so friable and easily detached one piece from 

 another, that the whole of it may be removed by the 

 pick and gad, without the use of gunpowder, which is a 

 material saving of expense in all mining operations. The 

 principal auriferous quartz vein is from two feet six 

 inches to three feet six inches wide, and stands nearly 

 vertical in a north-east and south-west longitudinal di- 

 rection. It is cased on either side by a perpendicular 

 wall of talcose slate, which by its thickness renders the 

 load nearly three feet six inches thick. Beyond this, 

 on either side, a vertical bed of the red earth before de- 

 scribed, and varying from two to three and a half feet 

 in width is found, and this is again walled in with ver- 

 tical beds of talcose schist, in a very soft and decom- 

 posed state. This formation is particularly conspicuous 

 in the openings Nos. 3, 10 and 11, and being curious to 

 observe and ascertain whether the above red earth, thus 

 walled in by the external schists, but external to the 

 principal hard and central quartoze vein, contained gold, 

 we had two portions of it taken up from the hole No. 

 11, one at three feet to the north-west, and the other at 

 three feet to the south-east of the central vein, and on 

 washing them they both yielded gold in a very percep- 



