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Mulga Mulga or Bieren. 
A few miles North of Cuddingwarra, gold was discovered in the year 1888 by 
a man named Birk, but for some reason very little prospecting was done, or the 
rich patches of the Cue would have been found sooner. 
The reef is small and not well defined, but shows fine gold in places in the 
stone at the surface, associated with a little copper pyrites, iron pyrites, and 
antimony. 
The Nancarrong Hills. 
About 150 miles to the South-Eastward of the Cue are the Nancarrong Hills, 
where, in the early part of 1890, gold was discovered in a reef on a low range of 
hills, about five miles to the Eastward of Yuin station. 
It is a large reef of bluish glassy quartz, with copper stains, striking East and 
West, and apparently dipping to the North, but going down nearly vertical as far 
as can be judged. The rocks, which are quartzite and mica slate with granite dykes 
and ironstone lodes, follow the same strike as the reefs. 
There is plenty of good water, and Horn its nearness to the coast, much poorer 
stone will pay well here than at the other side of the field. 
Between the Cue and Austin’s Lake, after leaving the “ Eight Mile,” the 
country for 10 miles South-East is covered by thickets for the greater part of the 
way, but upon approaching the lake it opens out into large salt, sandy, and clay 
flats covered with samphire. 
The Island, Austin’s Lake. 
The island is a high ridge of metamorphic rock, the main axis of which is a 
bed of ferruginous jaspery quartz (ironstone). It runs in a nearly North and 
South direction for a distance of about two miles, being divided from the North 
and South shores by two narrow arms of the lake, each about half-a-mile wide, 
which are quite impassable after heavy rains. This, added to the fact that there 
is no fresh water on the island, renders it anything but a pleasant place to get 
weather-bound in. 
The diggings on the island were some of the richest and most concentrated 
on the field, and it is the only place where anything like deep ground was met 
with, a defined gutter being found on the bed rock at 15 feet from the surface. 
The alluvial ground ran down from a saddle near the centre of the island, in 
an Easterly and Westerly direction, towards the lake, but no auriferous reefs have 
yet been found immediately on its course. The sinking was pretty tougli in 
places, as the alluvium was cemented together by gypsum. 
The reefs are phenomenally rich, but do not seem to carry gold for any great 
distance along their outcrop. The one on the main island runs in an East and 
West direction, cutting a main North and South reef at its intersection, with 
which some very rich stone was found. The other is on a small island to the 
North-East, and was also excessively rich, but in this case the main reef carried 
the gold at its junction with two leaders, one of which strikes to the North-East, 
and one to the South-East. 
Other reefs should be prospected for upon the saddle at the head of the leads, 
for the very heavy gold found there has not been carried far. As on the other 
parts of the field the richest shoots in the reefs were found where they crossed 
the ironstone bars; this should be borne in mind in prospecting for reefs here. 
Other rich patches of diggings exist on the main land to the North side of 
the lake, and a*patcli of country well worth prospecting lies to the Eastward from 
it. 
