26 
The gold was coarse and nuggetty. A large flat nugget of 90 oz. was found by the 
Chinamen, as well as several others ranging in weight from 2 to 20 oz. The gully was 
discovered hy Chinamen, and has been worked over three successive times by them. 
The gold is somewhat similar to that got in a drift near the heail of the gully, and may 
have come from there. At the time of mj^ visit two miners were sluicing the surface on 
the west side of the gully. The water was conducted through a water-race 3 miles 
in length, from a creek at the foot of the granite range. 
“ Payable gold has been got in most of the gullies around Mount Elvan. Three 
leads have been worked at the Upper Cape. 
“ The Canton Lead is situated on the western side of Gorge Creek. It runs 
ill a direction W. 35°' S. from a small gully called Little Bargoo Gully. The gold 
got in this gully was of the same character as that in the load. At the mouth of this 
gully the same hypcrsthcne-rock dyke crops out that is met with on Uaunton’s Hill. 
Payable gold was taken from surface workings at the head of the lead The breadth 
of the lead near its head is about 30 feet, and its depth about 15 feet. The country on 
both sides of it is schist. Further down, where it junctions with a branch lead from 
Surface Hill, it is 100 feet in breadth. 
“ The drift consists of flat pebbles of schist, and rounded pebbles and boulders 
of granite. It has a horizontal stratification. The wash at the bottom consists of 
much coarser pebbles. The gold was chiefly wire-shaped. 
“ It has been worked entirely by Chinamen ; they were sluicing it away in a face 
of about 25 feet in depth at the time I was there. The branch lead, heading from 
Surface Hill on the eastern side of Gorge Creek, was being sluiced by Daunton and 
party in Dauutoji’s Gully. It is only in rainy seasons such as that of last year that 
w'ater can be procured for sluicing purposes. 
“The Pot-hole Lead is situated a little over a mile below the Upper Cape, on 
the south side of the river. In the river at the mouth of the lead there is an intrusive 
felspar porphyry of a reddish chocolate colour, which, in thin sections under the micro- 
scope, shows an undistinguishable groundmass having a flowing structure, full of ferrite 
and magnetite, and containing porphyritic crystals of oligoclase felspar. This rock 
extends for over half-a-mile down the I’ivcr. 
“ Close to the river the drift is only 12 feet in thickness. The wash contains 
large boulders of granite, some of them over 2 feet in diameter. Pebbles of red oxide of 
iron occur in the drift, and are looked upon as a good indication of tlio presence of gold. 
Two hundred yards south of the river the average depth of the shafts is 30 feet. A few 
pebbles of olivine basalt occur hero, and also small pieces of rounded olivine, called 
‘ green painters’ by tlie miners, which arc said to bo a certain indication of gold in the 
wash. The presence of the basalt points to the fact that the drift must be of a great 
age, as no basalt occurs in the district now, with the exception of the dyke before 
mentioned, and that on Mount Hlaelc, about 6 miles up the river from here. The basalt 
pebbles are probably the detritus of the basaltic outflow of which the small patch on 
Mount Black is noAjr the only remnant. The other materials of the drift are similar to 
those in the Canton Lead. 
“ The Bluff Lead was being worked by Chinamen about a quarter of a mile north 
of the above. It is of the same chai’acter as the drift deposits.’’ 
In 1867 the Warden estimated the population of the Cape at 900 Europeans and 
100 Chinese, but gave no estimate of the gold produced. Before (he l)e])artment of 
Mines began (in 1877) to publish Annual lieports, the population and production had 
greatly declined. In 1878 the population was estimated at 50 Europeans and 45 
Chinese, and the production of gold at 3,000 oz. ; in 1879 the estimated yield was 
