Mines and Mineral Statistics. 
87 
observations, yon will notice, almost equally apply to tlie tin lodes of 
]N ew 3i,ngland. For I have already described several distinct systems 
of veins, joints, and faults, which prevail here; the general direction 
ot our tin lodes is E.iN^.E. ; and the alternate swelling and contraction 
of the lodes is obs('rval)lc in the Bolitho, and Canning and liuttou’s 
tin lodes, and is, in fact, characteristic of nearly all the tin and other 
veins in the granite of this district. 
The granites arc said to attain an elevation of nearly 5,000 feet 
above the sea ; and the fact that they are of upper earhoniferons age 
is one of importance in considering the orographical features of the 
Cordillera. 
Tlie carboniferous formation of the district has been described as 
presenting a series of beds ])recisely similar in character to tlioso of' 
the Hunter and Flawlccsbury, on the eastern side of the Dividing 
Eange. 
The identiilcation of the older tertiary drifts, clays, and ironstones 
as ot lowt'v niiocene age rests on tlunr perfect lithological resemblance 
to certain leaf beds of that age in A^ictoria, and also on the fossil leaves 
and plant stems which have been foxind in the ironstones l>etwecn 
Hewstcad and Elsinore. Similar leaf beds have been described by the 
Eev. Mr. Clarke (in his Hernarks on the Sedhneni'jrjj Formations of' 
N.S.W.) as occurring in A'arions parts of the Colony, and in one place 
at an elevation of 4,000 fc.et aliove the sea. He snj^posod them to be 
miocene, and observed that on comparing the living leaves with the 
impressions in the deposits mentioned he could sec no specific identity. 
The impressions of leaves on the rocks near Howstcad seem nndis- 
tmguishablc from those found in tlie above-mentioned leaf beds in 
Victoria. On the Geological Survey maps of Bacchus Marsh, Vic- 
toria, they have been described by Professor MT'oy as follows : — 
“The fossil plants of the ironstones are strikingly distinguished from 
the pliocene tertiary leaf beds of the Dayhvsford and otlu'r older gold- 
drift deposits, by the total absence of niyrtaceous ])lants which so 
strongly mark the recent forest foliage of T'ictoria. J have no doubt 
the fossil h'aves from lliis locality indicate a lower miocene or upper 
eocene tertiary flora, in wliich lanraceons plants form a remarkable 
feahire. All tlie .S}>ccic3 seem now, but leaves of Lanriis, Cinna- 
momnin. Daphnngene, and possibly Acer, arc scarcely to be dis- 
tinguished from species referred to those genera in the leaf beds (of 
the geological age mentioned) of Eott, near Bonn, and Oenuingen 
(specially the Cinnaniomnm polyniorphnin, Hce7’)-’' 
These plant deposits therefore indicate tlie phj^sical geography of 
this part of Australia to have been different in tlie miocene period from 
that wliich obtained in hitter tertiary times. 
In Victoria there interposes between these plant beds and the plio- 
cene basalts a thickness of several hundred foot of marine fossiliferous 
strata. These are absent in the district I now describe ; and the 
basalt, wliieli is the next formation mot wit.li, is seen to have filled 
ancient valleys (see fig. 2, c7),the erosion of which, since the deposition 
of the miocene plant beds, marks a lengthened period of even greater 
duration than that which succeeded the basalt eniption to the present 
time. 
Of the latter period its duration may bo imagined by contemplating 
the time required for rain and river action combined to erode a valley 
