A uriferous Quartz-veins . 
125 
Now, as a matter of fact, many of the largest nuggets that have 
been found were discovered between Moliagul and Wedderburn, 
close to the surface, in country where there is no indication of 
volcanic action having ever taken place; while, on the other hand, 
no pieces over 40 ozs. in weight have been found in the gravels 
beneath the older basaltic layers in Gippsland, where one would 
suppose the conditions for the development and action of mineral- 
ized waters would have been equally, if not more, favorable, and 
also of longer duration that at Ballarat. 
1 cannot help thinking, therefore, that the augmentation of 
pieces of gold by further deposit from the surrounding meteoric 
waters must have been very trifling, if it took place at all ; that 
the large nuggets were originally formed in the quartz reefs, and 
subsequently disintegrated therefrom; and that the occurrence of 
larger masses of gold in one part of the country than in another is 
due to the conditions under which the gold was first segregated in 
the quartz-veins having been more intense in one group of rocks 
than in another. 
Tolerably large lumps of solid gold, or intermixed with but a 
small proportion of quartz, and many ounces — in some cases 
pounds — iu weight, have been actually found in quartz reefs, and 
those which I have inspected all looked as though, if subjected to 
the long continued action of moving water in company with 
pebbles and other hard fragments, much, if not all, of their associ- 
ated quartz would be removed out of them, aud the gold beaten 
and welded into more compact form. It is not unreasonable to 
believe that if a mass of gold one pound in weight could have 
been formed uuder cortaiu conditions in a quartz matrix, a mass 
of 200 pounds or more might have been formed under similar but 
more intense conditions, perhaps accompanied by additional con- 
ditions favorable to the segregation of gold in larger masses than 
ordinary. 
Assuming the correctness of the previously enunciated theory 
as to the general mode in which quartz and associated minerals 
were segregated into veins, we have, iu addition, the certainty that 
those portions of quartz reefs which we now see at the present 
surface were really formed at great depths below what was the 
surface at the time they were iu process of formation. Enough 
has been said iu the portions of this work devoted to geological 
history to show that the denudation to which the Palaeozoic rocks 
haVe been subjected is simply incalculable. Most, if not all, of 
our quartz reefs appear to have been formed during Palaeozoic 
times, and consequently their original upper portions have been 
removed by the denuding action of subsequent ages ; it is quite 
possible, therefore, that when they were in process of formation 
the conditions near the then surface were more favorable than at 
considerable depths to the accumulation of the gold in large masses, 
and that the large nuggets found in our alluviums were originally 
i 
