THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[April i, 1882. 
forces have burst through quartz drifts and thrown those 
pebbles out with the ashes, leading to the inference of 
the existence of probably auriferous leads in the im- 
mediate neighbourhood, and where we do not find these 
rounded quartz or any other, to the existence of deep 
ground under the hills. 
The notice of volcanic forces bursting through quartz 
drifts and throwing pebbles out with volcanic ashe?, 
reminds us of what we observed, during a journey with 
a gentleman who owns large possessions on the banks 
of the Goulburn river (a great wheat region) beyond 
Echuca, a Victorian border town on the great rive Mur- 
ray. After driving over what appeared to be almost 
interminable park-like plains, on which timber enough 
was scattered to give pleasant shelter, we came at last 
to a rising ground, the manifest resultof ancient volcanic 
action. After admiring the extensive view, which 
included a lake of waters collected in a volcanic depres- 
sion, our attention was arrested by the curious mix- 
ture of brigbt fragments of quartz with the dark 
lavas. We said to our friend, who was talking of 
building a house on the eminence : " We are probably 
standing over a formation of quarlz rich in gold." "Oh ! 
for goodness' sake" exclaimed the fortunate possessor of 
38,000 acres of fine, fre ehold property, "don't say a word 
about gold, or shoals of people will come in and tear my 
beautiful place into holes and heaps!" Our frieud felt 
he had enough and he did not quite see with us that 
it was his duty to the colony to give it the benefit of 
such wealth as might be hidden in bis soil. Those 
who know what the presence of miners on land 
involves, will not wonder at the objection of the gen- 
tleman in question. Mr. Nicholls takes the position 
that although, quartz is always associated with gold, 
there are many quartz reefs barren of gold. He writes: — 
"We have more barren quartz reefs than auriferous reefs, 
and as far as we know more quartz reefs that pay 
handsomely at shallow depths than at great depths. At 
present it seems as if about a thousand feet from grass 
is our limit to in most instances payable stone, and yet 
there is no sufficient reason given to prove that depth has 
anything to do with the presence of gold in paying 
quantities or not, and if quartz is the matrix of gold, why 
should it not continue if our quartz reefs do, as is well 
known that they do in several districts, to un- 
known depths ? Gold has been found in granite, in 
diorite, sandstone, in slate, and in basalt. May it not 
be true that our silurian rocks are impregnated with 
gold more or less, and that though under special 
circumstances there is an accumulation of the metal in 
occasional quartz reefs and dykes (as at Wood's Point), 
the denudation of immense areas of bed rock for count- 
less ages may have had much to do with the formation 
of our alluvial leads, helped by the breaking down of rich 
quartz reefs, but not entirely dependent upon them. The 
processes of nature are not only varied but repeated over 
an extension of time we cannot realize, and under the 
same as well as different conditions ; hence the many puzzl- 
ing facts that no one theory accounts for. I have seen 
nuggets taken from the Hard-hills, Buninyong, without a 
particle of quartz, looking as if they had been poured 
out of a ladle in a molten state on to the bed rock. 
The last gold I obtained was a working miner at the head 
of Cobbler's Gully, Oresick, consisted of a run of coarse 
gold and nuggets, looking as if they had undergone enor- 
ous pressure and grindin force, found on the shoulder of 
the bed rock, and a few feet deeper, packed against a quartz 
reef that we could see no gold in, was 3ft. of washdirt 
containing nothing but fine gold, as if it had dropped 
out of a quartz reef a few days before we discovered it. 
The coarse gold came from a yellow bed rock, the other 
rested on a white pipeclay gutter, and crossing this gutter 
were several bands of hard greasy pipeclay of an inch or 
two in width carrying a good deal of gold. Here were 
three distinct deposits of gold all within a few 
feet of each other. Is there any theory that 
accounts for the facts ? I have taken out of the 
bed of the saltwater river at Gisborne and other 
places large flat pebbles that have in a single pebble 
contained a perfect miniature system of the five Clunes 
quartz reefs, and other pebbles fhowing in miniature 
quartz reef's of mony different kinds. What are we to 
understand by this ? (Some of my scientific friends may 
explain it. I can only record the facts. At Creswick and 
Ararat, with all the enormous amount of alluvial gold taken 
out I hardly know of a qarrtz reef that is paying ex- 
penses. As Artmus Ward might say, VVhyis this thus? 
What we do know amounts to this. So far as quartz 
reefs are concened, they may last to any depth and they 
may run out at any depth, both quartz and gold, or the 
quartz may continue and the gold give out, but when 
the quarlz runs out the gold never continues. Some quartz 
reefs run with the strata and some across the combs of 
the bed rock. Some thin out at all sorts of depths, and 
some make again and some do not. Some con- 
tinue well define-l to great depths, but the gold runs out. 
They all vary in yield, but some continue to pay and some 
dn not In the upper silurian bed rocks we have, as a 
rule, small but rich reefs, with some notable exceptions, 
like the long Tunnel Keef, Walhalla; and in the lower 
siluria", as on Ballarat, the main body of the stone is 
poor and the spurs from it are rich, and so on wJ infinitum, 
which to some extent justifies the practical miner, who says 
of gold, "Where it is there it is, and you have to work 
to get it," but we may do so with all the lights of ascer- 
tained fact, ergo groping about here and anywhere in a 
costly and expensive bewilderment. 
He goes on to say that the unknown may be infer- 
red from the known ; that there are belts of ascert- 
ained auriferous country and the richest and longest 
continued lines run north and south. Mr. Nicholl 
states : — 
Whether gold travels far or not I think depends upon the 
forces brought to bear upon it. If the forces are strong 
enough to t ouge out i he bed rock the fine gold will tra- 
vel with the clay and debris as long as that force continues. 
I have seem a flood at Clunes that carried a twenty pound 
lump of basalt ror-k half a mile, and that washed away a 
heap of puddled washdirt, but did not c :rry tbe gold fifty 
yar< s. As to alluvial deposits, I have found payable gold 
in the grass and black soil, and no payable quartz rcei in 
the neighbourhood ; I have seen gold in the black clay in 
Melb' urne on the top of the basalt, but what we know is 
that the east and west runs of gold pay out; that the north 
and south runs of gold continue apparently so long as they 
twist and turn within the area of one or more belts of 
auriferous country, as the Golden Point lead did and as the 
Creswick, Kingston, and Snieaton leads are now doing. 
Wherever gold is found, the lines north . and south 
of it should be followed. The conclusion is startling, 
and will, we suppose, be disputed. It runs thus :— 
In conclusion, permit me to say that all reports based 
upon the yield of gold per ton are illusive unless the cost 
of obtaining the gold is stated. Returns from Anderson's 
Creek, Diamond Creek, Gipps Land,and Reedy Crtek would 
surpass anything from the neighbouring colonies if com- 
piled in the same way, but " distance lends enchantment to 
the vie _ There is one test that may fairly be applied as 
between Victoria and any other colony. Let the investor 
ascertain how many dividend-paying coinpani s there are 
in Tasmania and New South Wales, or (what is the same 
ithing) the percentage of profit on the total investment in 
each colony, and I do not hesitate to say that whilst in 
Victoria we can shew a profit of sixty per cent, upon our 
total expenditure for 1881, that the neighbouring colonies can- 
not show any profit whatever ou the total expenditure for 
the past year. 
Our own opinion is that, in the other Australian 
colonies as well as the golden colony, par rxretlence, 
Victoria, the use of the diamond drills will deveh'pe 
mineral wealth rich beyond experience or even 
imagination, 
