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The lodes at Bethanga that intersect these Archaean rocks are very 
persistent; some of them have been traced for some miles. Their strike 
is from N. 25 deg. E. to N. 32 deg. E. There are several lodes 
known and probably many yet to be discovered. The most westerly lode 
is the Currajong lode on which the Mt. Corryjong Company is working. 
It is said to be traceable to the northward to the river flats of the Murray 
and southward to the flats of the Mitta. Mitta River, a length of 6 or 7 
miles; the next is the Hamburg lode about half-a L mile from the Currajong 
lode, said to* be traceable for 2 miles and opened up for some little distance 
by a tunnel. About 25 chains further east is the Gift' lode or main line 
which has been worked for about 3 miles of its length. Still further east, 
about 30 chains from the Gift lode, is the Welcome lode, said to be traceable 
for 2 miles. There are probably others that have not yet been discovered 
still further east. 
In these lodes are sulphides of iron, copper, lead, zinc, and arsenic, 
together with some gold and silver. At the surface the lodes were first 
worked for copper and smelters were used for the oxidized ores. As depth 
was attained the sulphides were the only ores and being of a complex 
character great difficulty has been experienced in treating them. Many 
processes have been tried without success, most of them wet ones or modi¬ 
fications of them, with the result that work came to a standstill after about 
30 years of effort. 
The manager of the New Bethanga Company considers that the correct 
method of dealing with the ores is to smelt them and further that, as the 
values of such by-products as copper, arsenic, &c., have greatly increased, 
these also should be saved and marketed. To this end new furnaces are 
being built and the works are being modified to suit the new methods. 
Both the Gift and the Welcome lodes have been extensively opened up, 
and given a suitable process there is abundance of ore to be won and the 
iodes are of such a nature that they may be expected to- continue persistently 
downward. It is also quite probable that lower down the value per fathom 
may increase, for most of the work hitherto done has been above water- 
level, and, therefore, the ore has been leached and in other ways modified. 
Mr. Bayne, the manager of the New Bethanga Company states that a great 
number o-f assays taken from every available portion of the mine give an 
average value of over ^4 per ton of crude ore. 
The deepest shaft on the mine is Martin’s shaft which is 820 feet deep 
and cuts the lode at about 200 feet below the tunnel level. From Martin’s 
shaft the lode has been worked for 1,000 feet southward and has been 
sto-ped down to- the bottom of the shaft; it has also been stoped northward 
down to the bottom of the shaft on the Gift lode. The strike o-f this lode 
is N. 25 deg. E., dip 80 deg. N.W. 
The Gift lode has been faulted in the gully which runs up from the 
upper township, and a new shaft is being sunk on the south-west side of 
the fault. 
The northern extension of the Gift lode has been tunnelled for a length 
of 1,378 feet and worked down to a depth of 90 feet by means of a shaft 
below tunnel-level. At the fault the north end of the Gift lode is thrown 
westward about 4 chains. 
Extensive flat dykes of fine grained granite with much black tour¬ 
maline intersect the country and are well seen on the hill south of the Gift 
shaft. The schists are contorted in a marvellous manner and they shade 
by insensible gradations into gneiss. The gneiss being sunk through at 
tne new Gift shaft contains in some parts abundance of garnet. 
