31 
sometimes as much as 8^ oz. to the ton. The field suffered for many years from an 
iiojugtly acquired bad reputation ; had it been discovered fifteen years later it would 
probably have entered at once on a course of unchecked prosperity. 
In 1888 several of the abandoned reefs again set to work, and the yield is set 
t own as 205 oz. In 1880, 109 oz. are credited to the field. Both of these amounts 
probably represent alluvial gold, as crushing machinery had been erected but not started 
o work. In 1890, 759 tons of stone yielded 5139 oz. of gold, 189 oz. of alluvial gold 
ringing the total to 758 oz. Recently some of the mines are reported to be on rich stone. 
From 1877 to 1883 the Annual Reports of the Department of Mines give the 
0 owing statistics of gold from “ Noriuanby, Marengo, and Mount Wyatt.” The 
greater part must have come from Normanby, and was probably chiefly alluvial gold : — 
1877 
1878 
1879 
1880 
1881 
1882 
1883 
220 
635 
712 
406 
273 
308 
201 
Total 
2,755 
Marengo. 
. , small field lies about twenty-three miles south-west of Bowen, on a low 
Th dividing the head waters of tlie Bogie from the parallel valley of the Don. 
0 ithological description of this limited area may be applied to the whole of the range 
e ween the Burdekin and the coast — essentially a white granite, in which the mica is 
intr^ supplemented and occasionally replaced by hornblende, frequent bosses of 
^ tusive pale pinkish felspar-porphyry (the felspar highly acidic), and occasional small 
^reas o gneiss and mica-schist and of little metamorphosed, or at least still recognisable, 
in^tlf **^'^*^ S^sywackes. The description of the field ought properly to have been placed 
^ Chapter, but is more conveniently included here, on account of its 
8 ographical connection with the iNormauby Field. 
About a dozen reefs were worked for a short time from 1871, but proved too 
oor or profitable working at the lime, the crushings varying from 3 dwt. to a little 
reefs showed a good deal of carbonate of copper, 
0 gold was soon found to be mixed with copper and iron pyrites. With 
economical working, Alarengo and numerous other fields similarly situated will some 
y l^y to work. One or two of the reefs are good enough to pay now, but could not 
A^^' whole of the expenses necessary to put the field in going order, 
m infancy offers an exception to the usual laws of trade. The mines 
th'^* common the expenses of the machinery, &c., without which they are 
ind^V^ worthless. Instead, therefore, of there being a struggle for existence, each 
ividual miner is directly interested in his neighbour’s prosperity. 
PEAK DOWNS GOLD EIELD. 
The reefs in this goldfield occur in an area of crumpled and fissured metamorphic 
Q slates, &c., near the township of Clermont. Daiutree, in his “ Gieology of 
Queensland”* refers these rocks to the “ Lower Silurian Series, or even to the' still 
that^ system of Victoria,” but the only direct evidence of their age is 
a a bed of limestone, apparently of Devonian age (Burdekin Beds), appears to lie 
Jiconformably on them. “ The principal reefing country lies to the south of Clermont, 
Quart. Journ. Gsol. Soc., vol. xxviii., p. 301. 
