32 
and extends from 2 to 3 miles west of Copperfiold to Macdonald’s Elat, a distance of 
about 7 miles. The reefs have a general oast-and-west trend. In none of them can 
the work be said to have gone beyond the prospecting stage. I must point out that 
the de^^th to which these reefs have been tried exceeds in no case 150 feet or 160 feet, 
and only in a few cases has this depth been reached. The returns of the erushings, 
too, that have been kept do not give a fair account of their average yield of gold, for 
the returns of the earlier and best erushings have been lost. I certainly am of opinion 
that some of them will be found payable at deeper levels.” {Hands.') 
“ Moat, or [ might say practically all, of the gold sent away from this field has 
been the yield of alluvial workings. Ever since the year 1862, when the first rush took 
place, thousands of ounces of alluvial gold have yearly been obtained. The returns of 
the gold sent away in earlier years have not been preserved. The yield, however, was 
much larger than of late years. This falliug-olf lias been caused, to a great extent, by 
the dearth of water.” {Hands.) 
In addition to diggings in the recent alluvia of the gullies on both sides of the 
Drummond Eange, gold has been obtained in largo quantities from drifts covered by a 
flow of basalt. The Victoria Load has been, perhaps, the richest deposit of gold in the 
district. At the summit of the hill, where the workings on it started, the washdirt was 
only 15 or 20 feet deep. About three-quarters of a mile to the north, where it ran 
under the ba,salt, it was 100 feet deep. Its average width is from 20 to 30 feet. A 
30-oz. nugget was obtained from near the bead of the load. The washdirt is said to 
have averaged 1^ oz. to the load all the way through, and 24 loads in one part went 8 oz. 
per load. Daintree, in his “ Geology of Queensland,” says, with reference to the 
volcanic outbursts : “ The more northern volcanic areas, those shown on the map north 
of lat. 21°, are probably contemporaneous with the upper volcanic scries of the Victorian 
Geologist, and are probably of Pliocene-Tertiary age. The southern areas, viz.. Peak and 
Darling Downs, &c., are older, agreeing with the Lower Volcaiiic of Victoria, which have 
been ejected through fissures, and have in no case a very extensive flow beyond the line of 
fracture through which they have issued. These may be referred to the Miocene epoch.” 
A still older, and in some respects a very remarkable, auriferous drift occurs in 
the Cement Hill, at Hurley’s, and at the Four-mile. Cement Hill is described as con- 
sisting of “ Firstly, from 15 to 30 feet of a conglomerate composed of boulders and 
pebbles of schist and small quartz pebbles, the whole cemented together by a clayey 
cement formed by the disintegration of the schist itself. This conglomerate is soft, 
but very tough to work in. The bottom 4 or 5 feet forms the washdirt in which the 
gold is found. Secondly, underlying the conglomerate is a fine-grained silt or shrle 
from 1 to 4 feet in thickness, termed by the miners ‘dig,’ which is cut away to facilitate 
the bringing down of the w'ash above. Lastly, another drift of smaller pebbles and not 
auriferous. This rests on the auriferous schists of the district. The ‘dig’ contains 
Olossopteris, the characteristic plant of the Bowen Fiver and IMeweastle (N.S.W.) 
Beds, and therefore the deposit appears to belong to Carbonifero-Permian Series. The 
auriferous portion of the upper conglomerate or drift is said to contain, as an average, 
about 5 or 6 dwt. of gold per ton.”* 
The above conclusion was quite warrantable while the presence of Glossopteris 
was understood to be an infallible test of the Palmozoic age of the strata in which it 
occurred. Such reasoning, however, has now entirety lost its force since Mr. Bands’ 
discovery of Glossopteris in the Desert Sandstone.t 
* W. H. Rands’ Report on the Geology and Mineral Deposits of the Country in the Vicinity of 
Clermont. Brisbane : by Authority: 188G. 
t See remarks under “The Organic Remains of the Desert Sandstone.” 
