PART 4.] 
Foote: Auriferous Rocks of the Bambal Hills. 
135 
The quartz reefs occurring in the other series are mostly well defined, and, with two 
or three exceptions, run in different directions. Many run in the linos of strike of the bed¬ 
ding, hut many cut across it in various directions. 
The most remarkable quartz reef in the whole auriferous tract, and the only one from 
which I succeeded in obtaining gold, lies about a quarter of 
senes, 1 'otH ute-Ku 1 tttereeff pats0de a Illile east t,lc eastern boundary of the Soortoor series, 
on the eastern slope of a ridge lying north-west-by-north of 
Huttee-Kuttee, a small village on the road between Dambal and Soortoor. This reef, which 
runs north-by-west, south-by-east, lies in the line of bedding of a series of reddish ferrugino- 
argillaceous schists with chloritic bands, both containing numerous cubical crystals of pyrites 
now converted into limonite by pseudomorphosis. Tbe reef is rather less than half a mile 
in its entire leugth, and only, in a small part of this is it a well-marked vein. Both the 
southern and northern extremities are very irregular, thinning out to a mere thread, or a few 
parallel threads in places, and then swelling into hunches, to thin out again a few feet fur¬ 
ther on. The reef does not cross the valley of the Guleeguttee nullah to the north, but 
thins out and disappears on the side of the ridge. The quartz is the ordinary dirty white 
variety, and includes a few little scales of chlorite along the lines of jointing, together with 
occasional cubes of pyrites, which, like those in the schists, have been pseudomorphosed into 
limonite. Parts of the quartz are ferruginous, the impure oxide of iron occurring in strings 
and lumps. The specimen of gold I obtained here is imbedded in such a ferruginous string. 
Though very small, it is quite recognizable, and shows a great resemblance to various pieces 
of stream-gold obtained by washing. It is of a very rich color. The piece of quartz con¬ 
taining it lay among the debris, beside the. top of the reef at its highest part, where it has 
been much broken up by gold-seekers, by whom irregular'mining operations have been carried 
on along the course of the reef. Much of it has been completely broken up, aud the hill 
side thickly strewn with fragments. Three rude sinkings hardly deep enough to deserve the 
name of pits, and a considerable length of shallow trenching along the course of the vein, 
remain still visible. Besides these, there is an old pit sunk on the east side of the wall-like 
part of the reef some little distance down the slope, probably with the object of ascertaining 
the continuity in depth of the reef. This seems to have been sunk by some one having 
more advanced ideas than the authors of the diggings on the back of the reef; but I could 
ascertain nothing certain or satisfactory as to whose work it had been. To the north-west 
of the reef a number of little short veins and bunches of quartz had been attacked in 
shallow trenches, and had had their surfaces knocked to pieces by the same people, who were, 
according to my guide (a coolie from the village of Dindoor), a company of native gold¬ 
smiths who lived in the now totally deserted village of Guleeguttee (Kubun Ivutkuttee of the 
Revenue Survey Map). These works had been carried out at some period prior to any time 
within the memory of my informant. The patels of Dhoni and Soortoor and others, of whom 
I enquired concerning these diggings, either could not or would not give me any information 
about the people by whom they had been made. I am rather inclined to suspect that the 
pit last mentioned was sunk by the Manager of a Gold Company which was got up durum 
the Bombay share mania, aud which Company, under the guidance of a practical Australian 
miner, sunk a lakh and a half of rupees in the search for auriferous quartz, and obtained no 
returns but a few small nuggets of Australian gold, sent down from time to time by the 
judicious manager to allay the anxiety in the shareholders’ minds till a convenient season 
came for him to disappear without having accounted for his expenditure. The only positive 
trace of his proceeding which I came upon or heard of was a pit about 15 feet deep, sunk 
on tbe south side of a quartz reef belonging to another series lying south of the village 
of Dhoui. 
