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in gold and that has produced many large nuggets, while the bed¬ 
rock on which this rich alluvial gold reposed has not yielded at all 
commensurately from the quartz reefs. At first sight this appears 
anomalous, but the discovery by Mr. Ferguson, who is preparing a plan 
of this district, of graptolites that have been determined by Dr. T. S. 
Hall to belong to the Lancefield or basal zone of the Ordovician series 
gives a clue. 
There are three distinct classes of auriferous alluvial deposits near 
Dunolly. The earliest represented consists of the Hard Hills and Goose¬ 
berry Hill remnants, of what has been classed as Older Pliocene drift. 
At one time these were all connected, and from Goldsborough and 
probably for miles northward, right down to Gooseberry Hill, there was 
a continuous belt of well-rounded quartz boulders and pebbles cemented 
into a conglomerate in many places, and very ferruginous in others. 
Only about four outliers remain between Goldsborough and Gooseberry 
Hill now. Each of these remnants, which occur on the hill tops, has 
evidently been richly auriferous, for every scrap of the ground has. been 
worked over. This riband of gravel that was once continuous represents 
an old river course, and, judging from the size of the boulders of quartz 
showing in one place, the stream must have been strong and large. 
It was the main drain along this tract of country, and therefore the strip 
of gravel marked the lowest line of country. Rising on either bank from 
this stream were hills, and these may have attained to hundreds of feet 
above the level of the stream. It is certain that the pebbles and boulders 
in the stream were subjected to much wear and tear before they were 
finally deposited where they now rest. The quartz of which these pebbles 
were formed may have seamed these ancient hills, and the gold in the 
bed of the stream was derived from the breaking down of the quartz veins. 
The outliers left of the Older Pliocene repose on Ordovician rocks 
of the Lancefield zone, but the rocks which supplied the quartz and the 
gold belonged to the higher Bendigo zone, which is more productive in 
gold. This has been worn down and carried away, and the resulting 
gold and pebbles of quartz rest on a much poorer bedrock. 
After the Older Pliocene times the hills were denuded still more, 
and even the Older Pliocene well-rounded gravel of the old river bed was 
worn away in places, until what was once the lowest part of the country 
now forms the hill tops, and the gold and pebbles were co-mingled with 
more angular and but partly-rounded quartz pebbles and with much 
ferruginous material, and these were again deposited at a lower level as 
Newer Pliocene, which is present and has been worked on the large flat 
west of Dunolly, on Gooseberry Hill, &c. Still later denuding influences 
cut more deeply into the Older and Newer Pliocene deposits, leaving only 
fragments of the former and cutting gaps cut out of the latter. The mixed 
but loose material resulting from this forms the recent gravels that are 
as much as 70 ft. deep north of Gooseberry Hill. 
And so it has happened that on a zone of rocks poor in gold the gold 
derived from a higher and more productive zone has been deposited, and 
this is why at Dunolly, although such great quantities of alluvial gold and 
many large nuggets were found, there has been disappointment in the reefs 
that occur in the bed rocks on which the alluvial gold rested, and the outlook 
for gold in the quartz reefs, at any rate in the immediate vicinity of Dunolly, 
is not very favorable. 
Further north the country appears to be more promising, and in this 
tract which lies south of Moliagul, indicators have apparently had much to 
do with the occurrence of gold which was generally coarse and nuggety. 
