Yol.  49. J  ME.  F.  D.  POMEE  OX  THE  PAMBELA  GOLD-DEPOSITS.  235 
southerly  (the  most  usual  direction  for  shoots  in  Australia),  and 
these  are  richest  in  loose  or  soft  1  country,’  hut  gradually  become 
poorer  towards  the  foot  wall-side,  where  the  stone  becomes  4  tighter/ 
Iron  pyrites,  though  not  in  a  massive  form,  is  associated  with  the 
gold.  The  course,  4  underlay,’  and  width  vary  in  these  lodes,  within 
certain  limits,  as  in  others,  and  they  are  also  affected  by  a  dyke 
which  crosses  them.  The  country  is  hilly  and  disturbed,  as  is 
generally  the  case  where  lodes  occur. 
Some  observers  term  these  deposits  4  true  fissure-lodes  ’ ;  but  many 
miners  believe  that  the  word  ‘  fissure  ’  suggests  an  open  crack  of 
some  importance.  In  the  gold-beariug  portion  there  is  no  evidence 
that  such  an  open  crack  ever  took  place  ;  the  rupture  was  caused 
by  pressure,  which  would  not  allow  of  an  open  crack  existing.  The 
minute  joints  between  the  lenses  cannot,  with  the  greatest  stretch 
of  the  imagination,  be  called  ;  fissures/  The  quartz  indicator  runs 
parallel  with  the  cleavage  of  the  surrounding  rocks,  and  evidently 
occupies  a  cleavage-joint  which  was  gradually  filled  with  quartz ; 
for  the  grooves  on  the  face  of  the  quartz,  where  it  has  rubbed 
against  itself,  prove  that  motion  has  taken  place  since  some  of  the 
quartz  was  deposited.  Lodes  in  soft  rocks  are  not  so  likely  to  be 
well  defined  as  those  in  hard,  so  the  merging  of  one  4  wall  ’  into 
the  enclosing  rock  was  to  be  expected.  The  foliated  structure 
of  this  enclosing  rock  is  not  obliterated  in  the  ore-channel,  except  in 
very  rare  instances.  The  difference  between  these  lodes  and  lodes 
abundant  in  sulphides  is  due  more  to  degree  than  to  any  fundamental 
character ;  it  seems  greater  than  it  really  is,  on  account  of  the  diffi¬ 
culty  of  distinguishing  between  the  ore-channel  and  the  enclosing- 
rock,  a  distinction  rendered  less  easy  because  the  ore-channel  is  for  the 
most  part  a  *  bedded  lode,'  and  has  not  been  subjected  to  a  meta- 
somatic  change,  nor  had  it  wide  interstices  which  could  be  filled  by 
extraneous  minerals. 
These  lodes  are  worked  with  profit  on  the  top  of  Mount  Gahan 
(named  after  one  of  the  original  prospectors),  where  rock  has 
been  crushed,  yielding  1  oz.  12  dwt.  to  the  ton,  and  also  in  Pipe  Clay 
Gully,  493  feet  below,  where  the  picked  stone  sent  to  the  battery 
gives  11  oz.  per  ton.  The  rock  is  naturally  looser  on  the  surface  than 
deeper  down,  and  therefore  it  is  to  be  feared  that,  since  the  spaces 
between  the  lenses  are  so  minute  on  the  surface,  they  will  be  still 
smaller  as  the  depth  increases,  until  finally  the  4  country  ’  becomes 
so  4  tight’  that  there  will  be  no  place  for  the  gold  to  lodge. 
Discessiox. 
Mr.  H.  Baeebmax  said  that  the  condition  of  occurrence  noticed 
by  the  Author  was  characteristic  of  a  considerable  area ‘in  North 
America,  in  the  States  of  North  and  South  Carolina  and  Georgia, 
where  gold  has  been  obtained  from  pyrophyllite  and  other  soft 
schists  associated  with  quartzite  and  irregular  quartz-veins,  the  latter 
not  being  always  gold-bearing.  As  a  particular  instance,  he  men¬ 
tioned  the  Brewer  Mine  in  South  Carolina. 
