154 
CRUISE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
Chinamen and trucked to the waste heap. Several 
hours are consumed in this washing process ; and I 
was informed that some years ago they used to net 
about 120 ounces of gold a day : then the gold used 
to be lifted out in bucketfuls, for final washing and 
weighing, before removal to the bank. The process 
is efficient, though it seemed to be rude, and the 
time spent in sight-seeing here was one of rare 
interest and curiosity. 
Tunnels have been cut in various directions in 
search of the precious metals. * * * When these 
golden deposits had their origin, and when the great 
successive layers of bluestone were thrown over them, 
are amongst those lost incidents in the history oi 
creation concerning which science can do no more 
than speculate. The extent to which these great 
quartz boulders have been rolled, shows that they 
had been carried a very much greater distance than 
the ranges to which we ascribe their origin ; or that 
they were shaken to and fro in some great con- 
vulsive struggle of nature, such as the earth has 
not experienced since man came upon it from the 
hands of the Creator. Four successive layers of 
basaltic rock have overrun at long intervals and 
buried the golden stream of an ancient world ; and 
so changed has the crust of the earth become since 
the last of these great seas of molten rock passed 
over the land that the craters from whence they 
issued have themselves become lost. The stories 
