4S 
thousands of miners, at once enriching many of those who 
bottomed on the gold, and forming the nuclei of mining 
townships. " Yet we have had a Department of Mines, and 
a so-called Progressive Mining and Geological Survey of 
Victoria ! A learned geologist as Secretary of Mines ! ! and 
£10,000, voted for prospecting, lying inert for many months 
of a seriously depressing crisis in mining ! ! ! 
Geology, however, when its theories are based on a tissue 
of hypothetical surmises, discarding the physical agencies 
ever at work in re-modelling the external aspect of the 
earth's crust, is often painfully at fault as regards its assumed 
disclosures ; or, rather, these are too often misinterpreted by 
those professing to be thoroughly versed in the science. 
Hence mining enterprise is sadly discouraged. The working 
miner has not capital to enter upon claims, requiring, accord- 
ing to geological theories, very deep workings to reach the 
golden drift ; and the capitalist withholds aid, usually, until 
prospecting has given a clue to the position of a payable 
wash. With the discouragement to mining for alluvial gold, 
there has resulted a diminution in the number of experienced 
miners at work. Let but a reaction take place, by discovery 
by boring, that gold leads of payable quality are attainable 
by mining industry in nearly every one of our great valleys, 
and can be payably worked (and re-worked) at several succes- 
sive levels, and an immense stimulus to increase of population 
must ensne. The writer, in his work on " Auriferous Drifts," 
published in 1868, now out of print, combated the assertion 
of the then Victorian Geological Surveyor, Mr. Selwyn, as to 
the improbability of discoveries of gold drifts in Gipps Land. 
Mr. Selwyn had published a letter dissuasive of search in 
that district south of "the Moe to Hay field ; thence to Ben 
Cruachan and Mount Wellington ; and thence south-easterly 
to Lindenow and the coast ;" alleging that it was " highly 
improbable, if not indeed impossible, that rich leads would be 
found inside, or south of the line indicated. . . . Under 
the country referred to, the gold rocks are buried far beyond 
the reach of the prosjjeetor's pick or boring rods." The 
author's prognostications, however, proved to be correct as 
to a great probability of auriferous drifts being found within 
this proscribed area, considering that the rivers had for ages 
brought down debris from the mountains ; and he is convinced 
that startling discoveries will yet be made of richly payable 
drifts, or beds of wash-dirt, at depths beneath the Gipps 
Land plains, much more stallow than as yet sought for or 
discovered. He is also convinced, from the numerous evi- 
dences afforded by disclosures of water-worn quartz, and varied 
