159 
THE CLUMES GOLDFIELD. 
By E. ]. Dunn , F.G.S., Director , Geological Survey. 
In 1866, the writer was at dunes, and at that time it was the most active 
centre of quartz mining in Victoria. The Port Phillip Company, with Cap¬ 
tain Bland as manager, had 90 stamps at work, and energetic sinking was 
in progress around the original mine. To-day, there is a solitary chimney- 
stack and a few heaps of mullock to mark the scene of so much activity 
in former years. At the time these mines were in full swing the tailings 
were sent into the creek and with each flood they were swept down its 
course, and many men, so far back as 1865, earned a living, and some¬ 
times a very good one, by treating the concentrates and fine gold that 
was arrested by grass in the bends of the creek. 
Cyaniders are still at work, and every bit of the old sand and slimes 
Is eagerly sought for, and where covered up even by 6 or 8 feet of 
soil it is uncovered and cyanided. The whole of the residues have paid 
handsomely for cyaniding, and it is evident that those who originally 
worked the Clunes reefs did not recover a large percentage of the gold 
actually in the quartz. 
Mr. Lidgey, in 1897, in reporting on Clunes, distinctly states that the 
reefs there are connected with anticlines and are saddle reefs j he also 
states that the pitch on the north side of the creek is northward, and on 
the south side southward, and after an examination of the surface I can 
confirm these statements. The outcrop of auriferous quartz at Clunes is 
just due to the fact that the culmination of the pitch on the anticline occurs 
at Clunes. The anticline is exposed a few feet to the east of the old 
chimney-stack that still stands. About 4 chains further north the beds 
dip west and pitch north at about 20 deg. In a small gully in the old 
lease of the New North Clunes Company there is also an anticline. At 
a distance of i\ chains east from the old chimney-stack an eastern “ leg ' - ’ 
was worked at the surface. This pitches northward at about 15 deg. 
The country rocks exposed and on the dumps consist of Ordovician slates, 
sandstones, and mudstones, but it would be difficult to assign them to their 
proper zone without the evidence of fossils. 
It is mentioned by Mr. Lidgey, as a reason for the failure of the 
most northern company (The New North Clunes Consols) that the pitch 
would probably carry the productive zone so rapidly down that their work¬ 
ings would be much too shallow to reach it, and this is undoubtedly the 
case. 
At- the time these very productive saddle reefs were worked, nothing 
was known about their structure and relations to the country rock and to 
one another, but, with the facts now established, it is clear that this 
field should be again opened with two definite objects in view—the one 
to sink deeper on the anticline, so as to prove whether there are not equally 
rich auriferous saddle reefs below those already worked; the other to 
attempt to work at greater depths, both north and south, the reefs already 
worked at the highest point of the pitch. It is not conceivable that the 
productive zone terminates where the workings leave off. 
The water difficulty is not likely to be a heavy burden, because there 
is no alluvial water to deal with, but merely what is natural to the rock 
itself. 
Should an attempt be made to re-open these mines—and it ought to 
be done—a small capital would be of little service, for, as the ground 
is bare, the plant would have to be purchased and erected. The old 
