I 
74 
, The Cue. 
At the Cue itself the largest patch of auriferous country exists that has yet 
been found on this field; it was quickly skimmed over, as no gold was found by 
sinking, but all on the surface. Here are situated the celebrated “ specking ” 
grounds, over which hundreds of men walked day after day, turning over every 
stone with a forked stick to see if it might not be a specimen or cover a nugget. 
A very large quantity of gold was found in this way, and a stray piece is now and 
then still picked up. 
The surface of most of these patches is covered with quartz and ironstone, 
and a good deal of the quartz carries a little gold. Many of these patches, after 
being specked, paid to be dry-blown, but in other cases all the gold was either 
found as specimens, or in too large pieces to be missed by the speckers, and 
therefore is of no value to work afterwards. 
There are three distinct classes of reefs about here; the first is the Ladv 
Kintore line, which rises abruptly from the plains, forming a main ridge on the 
South-West side of the Cue Hill; this reef is composed for the most part of a 
white, barren-looking quartz, and its course is not in one defined direction, but 
turns away to the Eastward at the Northern end. 
The rocks about here are mostly of a schistose nature, with numerous diorite 
dykes ; but more to the Westward the country consists entirely of a white, decom¬ 
posed granite, in which the second class of reef is met with. These are of a 
white, glassy, lmngry-looking quartz, with many cavities, which are usually filled 
with crystals of green foliated talc and crystalline gold. Part of the lode is a 
decomposed green magnesian rock, which also carries gold. , 
These reefs are well defined, and have every appearance, as they are opened 
up, of being time, permanent veins; but they are different to anything that has 
been found before. 
The other class of reef is of a blue colour. These lie to the North-East of the 
Cue, but have not been developed enough yet to form any opinion about them. 
This line of gold-bearing country runs in a continuous line in a North- 
Easterly direction to the “ Four Mile/’ which derives its name from its distance 
from the Cue. Here a line of reef rises up abruptly, forming the main ridge, the 
general characteristics of which are very similar to the Kimberley reefs. 
This line is called the Day Dawn, after the first claim taken up on it. The 
stone is of a bluish mottled appearance, and the reef is of great size and well 
formed. It is a true fissure vein, but does not follow any definite course, striking 
first West-North-West, then North-North-West, and so on to North; but this is 
not of the least consequence, as, from its well-defined walls, there is very little 
chance of it cutting out. 
Some very rich patches of surfacing were found on the sides of tliis and several 
other reel's about here and all the way in a North-Easterly direction to the Cue 
proper. 
Another patch on this line is called the “ Eight Mile,” being about that dis¬ 
tance from the Cue. Here several very promising and well-defined reefs were 
found on a fiat, and on the East side of a low ridge of metamorphic rock, where 
the same jaspery ironstone is met with; but as yet so little has been done to open 
up the country "that it is quite impossible to say anything about the formation of 
these lodes. 
The Dead Finish, or Cuddingwarra. 
About 7 miles due W.N.W. of Cue townsite another patch of Metamorphic 
rocks outcrop, where several gold-bearing reefs were found, » small but rich 
patch of alluvium worked. 
