Chap. XIX.] 
GOLD OF VICTORIA. 
467 
In bowing to the reasoning of a sound geologist, who has so carefully explored 
our most auriferous Colony, and in modifying my former suggestion respecting 
the profitless nature of much gold-mining in the solid rocks of Victoria, I still 
adhere to the belief that, in general, gold- veins diminish much in value as they 
descend j and I cannot but think that even Victoria affords clear indications of 
this phenomenon, inasmuch as all the huge nuggets of gold have there been 
found in Drift derived from the upper portion of the rocks. I have indeed yet 
to learn that any large lump of gold has been detected in the numerous quartz- 
reefs now worked in California or Victoria. In all these, as I learn, the gold is 
disseminated downwards in small grains only *. I am informed by Mr. D. Forbes 
that the same law exists throughout South America ; and according to Mr. Belt 
this is also the case in Nova Scotia. 
One of the most striking examples of successful mining in quartz-reefs was 
given in a Report of Mr. Selwyn upon the Chines Quartz -mining-field, about 
twenty miles north of Ballaarat, and in the occupation of the Port Phillip Com- 
pany. There it appears that four thin quartz -veins, trending from north to 
south, and running parallel to each other and to the strata, plunge eastwards in 
conformity with the strata of the Lower Silurian rock in which they lie, and at 
a high angle, near the side of a hill, so that the small width of the veined ground, 
from west to east, is easily traversed by adits from the lower sloping side of the 
hill. An abundance of water, and every facility for working by means of levels, 
together with the position of the veins, present a combination of circumstances, 
as Mr. Selwyn observes, rarely met with in connexion with quartz-veins, and 
one which will enable these reefs to be worked far more profitably, and at 
greater depths, than many others in the Colony of Victoria. From recent 
accounts it would appear that in working downwards even these quartz-reefs or 
lodes are now found to be less rich in gold. 
In thus modifying a portion of my views, I readily admit that, inasmuch as 
the broken or drifted gold of Victoria has exceeded anything of which we have a 
record in history, so it is a fair inference that the quartz-reefs in the solid rock 
of the same Colony, from the higher parts of which the richest drifted materials 
were derived, may prove more remunerative than those of most other countries. 
Looking, however, at the Australian phenomena on a broad scale, there are 
no essential distinctions between them and the geological relations of gold in 
the Old World and in America. 
The greatest sources of wealth there, as elsewhere, are those depressions which 
have been filled, or slopes which have been strewed over, with debris from the 
mountains, whether coarse or fine. The outlines and depths of all these detrital 
heaps are ascertainable, and the period of their exhaustion may therefore be 
Colony of Victoria, should peruse the works of 
Mr. Westgarth and Mr. Wathen. As regards pro- 
duce up to a certain period, see also Delesse, 
Annales des Mines, ser. 5. 1853, torn. iii. p. 185. 
The true chronicler, however, of all the auriferous 
returns must refer to the files of the Victorian 
newspapers, particularly the Melbourne ' Argus.' 
In this work I cannot enter into details re- 
specting the oscillations in the amount of gold- 
produce in Australia. These must be sought in 
the ' Argus ' and other Victorian newspapers, and 
notably in Dickers's ' Mining Eecord.' In the lat- 
ter we find an account of much newly discovered 
drift-gold near Ballarat, under the basaltic cou- 
le'es. In it also, May 28, 1866, there is an account 
of a very productive deep mine at Sutter Creek in 
California, sunk by Mr. Hayward to a depth of 
1200 feet, and which is said to prove that the 
veinstone continues to be richly auriferons. It is, 
however, to be understood that this shaft has been 
sunk alongside a wall of granite. 
* Subsequent to the large lump, weighing up- 
wards of 145 lb., called the ' Blanch Barkly JNug- 
get,' (see note, p. 456), being exhumed, another 
mass was found at Ballaarat, weighing more 
than 184 lb. ! Now, as these and all the large 
nuggets occur low down in Drifts, the facts seem 
strikingly to confirm my view, that the higher 
portions of the veinstones, or those first abraded, 
afforded masses of gold much larger and richer 
than those finer filaments and grains which, de- 
rived from lower parts of the veinstone, are lodged 
in the upper detritus. 
2h2 
