Mines and Mineral Statistics. 
95 
detailed form than I could possibly have hoped to have worked it out 
in the time at my disposal, consisting as it does merely of short 
intervals of leisure. 
Wallera-vvanff is distant from Sydney some 105 miles, on tlic west- 
■ern line of railway. 
The township and station of that name is situated on a “ drift” 
composed of pebbles disseminated tbrougli a soft argillaceous cement 
or clay. The enclosed pebbles consist principally of rolled fragments 
of quartz, jasper, flinty-slate, argillaceous sandstone, and other sub- 
stances. On the whole, this drift hears a very close resemblance to 
the diamond-bearing drift of Bingera and other places ; and, like the 
diamond drift, it contains nodules of conglomerate, composed of 
rounded and sub-angular fragments of white and coloured quartz, 
and various other minerals, agglutinated together into a compact mass 
by a ferruginous cement. 
It also contains a small quantity of gold, but apparently not in snffi- 
cient quantity to pay for Avorking at the present time. 
This drift can be traced for some distance— as far, lam informed, as 
Eathurst. Good sections of it are seen at the WalleraMung Itailway 
Station, and along the jMudgee and other I’oads near the town, where 
several small cuttings show its structure very well. 
The deposits of iron 'ore at present opened out are situated some six 
miles from Wallcrawang, and near the junction of the coal iueasures 
with the Upper Silurian or Devonian beds, Avliich there crop out to the 
surface. These deposits contain tAvo varieties of iron ore, A'iz. — ^mag- 
netite or the magnetic oxide of iron, and brown hematite or goethite— 
tlie hydrated oxide ; then in addition to these tliore are deposits of the 
so-called “ clay band,” which are interstratified witli the coal measures. 
These clay l)ands are not what are usually known as clay iron ores in 
England. They are brown hematites, var. limonite, while the English 
clay iron ores are impure carbonates of iron, whicli seldom contains 
much more than 30 per cent, metallic iron, against some 50 per cent, 
■contained by the liematitcs. 
A highly ferruginous variety of garnet accompanies tlie veins of 
magnetite ; this garnet is very rich in iron, anditwill probably he found 
advantageous to smelt it with the other ores, not only on account of 
the lai’ge percentage of metal which it contains, but also on account of 
the increase Iluidity which it would impart to the slag. 
# Iron Ore Deposits. 
1. Marfnetlte . — The vein of magnetic ore runs apparently iN'.E. hy 
S.W. Tliis can only he stated approximately, for, owing to the action 
exercised by it on tlie needle, the compass was found to be perfectly 
useless in the vicinity of the lode, 
The ore is scattered over the ground in blocks and nodules along its 
outcrop ; but at a little depth it is in a solid and compact body, merely 
broken across here and there into large masses by joints and fissures. 
In one part the vein has a width of thirteen (13) feet ; but at another 
spot, where a trench was cut across, it was there found to be not less 
than 24 feet in width. 
Two shafts have been sunk on this vein — one at a depth of 10 and 
the other to a depth of 23 feet. At these depths the qudity of the ore 
is about the same as that at the surface. 
