29 
informs me that at Mount Greenock they drove along a guartz boulder for 
13 feet. Its height and width were not ascertained. In the old lead, east 
of Creswick, boulders of quartz up to 3 or 4 tons, well rounded and smooth, 
were exposed, resting on the edges of the sandstones and slate. Such 
large boulders could not have been borne by water far from their source of 
origin. The rounding of pebbles and boulders is partly due to the percus¬ 
sion of the pebbles, the one against the other, but probably most of the 
work of attrition is caused by the particles of sand borne along by the cur¬ 
rent, which acts as a ceaseless rasp, wearing down and smoothing everything 
passed over. The sand also suffers from the contact, and small particles 
become still smaller, until they are reduced to fine silt, and this is the 
ultimate goal of even the coarser materials, only they have periods of .rest 
on their way. 
In the Ristori No. 2 shaft, near Allendale, pebbles of quartz were found 
with green stains (carbonate of copper). On breaking these open dendrites 
of metallic copper were observed in the cleavages of the pebbles. Mr. 
Smyth, former mine manager of this mine, states that to the west of the 
shaft a copper lode, 2 inches thick, was cut in driving, and that in it 
native copper occurred; also that a great deal of native 
copper was found with the gold in the wash-dirt. This copper was 
picked out and treated separately for the gold it contained. In the Berry 
Lead the wash-dirt ranges up to 7 or 8 feet in thickness. In places it 
is bound together into a hard conglomerate by iron pyrites. In other 
places it is bound together probablv by siliceous material, for the pebbles 
break across rather than become detached from the matrix. Some of this 
conglomerate is of dark grey, almost black, colour. Fossil wood occurs 
frequently ; a sample was tested for gold, but none found in it. If these 
deep alluvial waters contain gold in solution, fossil wood would be a likely 
pi ace for deposition to take place. In the Spring Hills Mine, the gold is 
of dark brownish-vellowish colour, and of high quality, selling at ^4 3s. 
per oz. Most of it is in small, well water-worn, flattened grains; some 
pellets range up to 1 dwt. each. The very fine gold worn off the larger 
grains and particles should be in the slimes, and an average of the “ slum ” 
from this mine is to be assayed.! 
Good yields of gold occur, as a rule, when the wash-dirt is coarsest and 
heaviest. Often the best wash-dirt lies several feet above the pipe-clay 
bottom. The most favorable conditions for a good yield are where the 
wash-dirt is from 2 to 3 feet thick, of heavy character, and resting directly 
upon the pipe-clay bottom. 
The great abundance of gold in the Berrv Lead and its branches indi¬ 
cates that belts of Ordovician sandstones and slates, underneath and along¬ 
side of the old stream beds, were traversed by richlv auriferous quartz 
veins. In working the alluvial mines the reef drives frequently intersected 
quartz reefs. Mr. Browne, mining manager of the Spring Hills mine, 
states that in the Lord Harry mine, Clementston, 600 feet from the surface, 
and 200 feet east of the shaft, there is a reef 60 feet through, which was 
not tested for gold, but that the exceedingly rich Earl of Beaconsfield 
gutter ran alongside this reef. About i\ miles southerly from Allendale, 
Ordovician rocks are exposed, showing an abundance of quartz veins, 
which appear to have scarcely been prospected at all for gold. 
The subsidences that have taken place at the Spring Hill mine are of 
great interest from a geological point of view, and from a mining stand¬ 
point are disastrous, 'for by this means a considerable area of auriferous 
t A.ssay proved the average value of the slimes to he 10 grains of gold per ton. 
