180 
NOTES ON THE FOSTER GOLD-FIELD. 
By W. H. Ferguson. 
The township of Foster is situated on the banks of Stockyard Creek, 
on the site of the old Stockyard Creek diggings. It is on the South- 
Eastern Railway, 107 miles from Melbourne. The railway station is 
76 feet above the sea-level, and the altitude of the township, which is 
three-quarters of a mile away, is about 100 feet. All gold mining opera¬ 
tions are in the immediate vicinity of the town. The bed-rock is Silurian, 
masked by surface deposits. 
At first all mining was alluvial. . At present only a few alluvial mines 
are at work, but the Victory quartz mine has been worked for a number 
of years, and is still working. At this mine a large dyke has been intruded 
into the Silurian slates, sandstones, and schists. At one place on the 
surface the dyke looks like a porphyry, while in the mine it resembles a 
granite. Mr. Jas. Stirling considers that the dyke continues southwards, 
and is connected with the granitic Doughboy Island, which is doubtless 
an outlier of the Wilson's Promontory granite. It varies from a few feet 
to 200 feet in thickness. Its strike is S. 5 deg. E., and it is much 
faulted. In the dyke there are horizontal or slightly inclined veins of 
quartz, which extend for considerable distances into the surrounding 
Silurian rocks. The veins range up to 18 inches in thickness, and yield 
up to 5 ozs. of gold per ton, and occasionally very rich patches of quartz 
are found. Two kinds of ‘‘indicators” occur. The mine has been 
developed to a depth of about 500 feet. 
It would be a legitimate prospecting venture to try to locate the south¬ 
ward continuation of this dyke. A shaft might be sunk to the west of 
the Church of England. The bed-rock would most likely be met with 
at less than 50 feet. A cross-cut of 100 feet could be driven at a small 
cost. Rich alluvial might be found above the dyke. The dvke might 
also be located by means of a light portable boring plant. 
In 1875, Mr. R. A. F. Murray suggested that the gold in the alluvial 
deposits capping New Zealand and Cement Hills had been derived from 
a line of quartz reefs traversing these hills. This seems very probable, 
and a downward search might well be made for quartz reefs and other 
dykes. 
There are two series of vounger deposits. The more recent is the 
alluvium, which has been worked for gold along' the creek. The other 
consists of gravels, loose or cemented, which cap Dalton’s Hill and New 
Zealand Hill, and occur in places on Kaffir Hill, on the flanks of which 
the Victory mine is situated. These gravels have been extensively 
worked for gold, especially on New Zealand Hill, but the richest yields 
appear to have been obtained on Kaffir Hill, close to the Victory mine. 
Here, in deep alluvial, stretching from the mine to the creek, auriferous 
quartz boulders were found, some of which contained as much as 20 ozs. 
of gold. Almost all, the gold had quartz attached to it. The pros¬ 
pectors’ claim is said to have yielded gold to the value of j£6 0,000. The 
gold at Kaffir Hill was evidently derived from the Victory dyke formation, 
but it is very unlikely that the gold at New Zealand Hill came from the 
same source. 
The following publications of the Mines Department deal with this 
locality :— 
1. Turner, E. W.—Report on the Stockyard Creek Diggings. 
Quart. Rept. Dept. Mines, Viet., 30th June, 1871. 
