41 
through which there apparently passes a line of weakness, the surface indica¬ 
tions of which are a line of mineral springs (one occurring on Joyce’s Creek, 
on the Maryborough-Newstead road, the other on Deep Creek, on allotment 
No. 54 A , parish of Campbelltown), and on the southern extension of this line 
is a line of fissure eruption in allotments Nos. 91 and 93, parish of Bullarook. 
It is possible that the noises originate along a fault line, and that movements 
are yet taking place, and these cause the sounds that are heard. 
There is another possible explanation, for the locality where the sounds 
are heard is volcanic, and the part indicated by the bearings is within 5 miles 
of Smeaton Hill or Mount Kooroocheang, an extinct volcano where faults are 
known. About 10 miles south of the locality where the supposed brontidi 
emanate three extinct volcanoes, Eastern Hill, Mount Prospect, and Lang- 
don’s Hill, indicate a line of fracture of the earth’s crust. If this line be 
produced northwards it would pass close to where the sounds are supposed 
to originate. 
[ 30 . 3 . 11 .] 
THE GOLDEN HOPE MINE, NEAR BLAKEVILLE. 
By W. H. Ferguson, Assistant Field Geologist. 
The Golden Hope mine, formerly known as the Ragged Thirteen mine, 
is situated on the ranges about 1 mile north-easterly from Blakeville, about 
8 miles north of Ballan; and about 7 miles south of Bullarto railway station. 
I went to the mine from Bullarto, but the best way is from Ballan, as there 
is said to be a good road to within 1 mile of the mine. The road from Bullarto 
is only a rough bush track, so cut up by timber jinkers, that it is impassable 
to light wheel traffic. From old Bullarto, which is 1 mile south of the 
Bullarto railway station, a ridge runs south to Blakeville, and reaches an 
elevation of upwards of 3,000 feet above sea-level. Near Bullarto a consider¬ 
able amount of slate outcrops, and the soil is of medium quality and red in 
colour ; about 2 miles south there is a change, and more sandstones and grits 
come in ; the soil is then poor and sandy in quality and white in colour, and 
the timber is stunted. 
A reef runs with the strike of the country rocks, nearly north and south, 
but the main feature of the mine is a gold occurrence in a dyke. The dyke 
varies somewhat in different parts of the mine ; it passes from a felsite to a 
felspar-porphyry and to a quartz-felspar-porphyry of fine grain. Near the 
surface the rock contains hollow spaces from which cubes of iron pyrites 
have been leached out, and at a depth it contains small cubic crystals of iron 
pyrites scattered throughout the rock. The dyke appears to strike north 
and south with the country rocks as well as could be judged in the mine 
workings, and it is 100 feet wide, measured from the west, where it is bounded 
by slate to the drive on the east, which has not reached the eastern wall as 
it was discontinued in kaolin. In one or two places the dyke encloses a narrow 
band of slate, and on the western wall there is 1 foot of crushed fault-rock, 
mostly slate, indicating a movement plane. The intrusion of the dyke appears 
to have effected little or no alteration in the adjacent slates. At the western 
end of the 70-ft. level the western wall of the dyke dips east at 65° agreeing 
with the dip and apparently with the strike of the country rock; as there 
are several inclusions of slate in the dyke this may not be the true foot-wall, 
and there is a possibility of it being further west. 
The gold does not occur evenly distributed throughout the dyke-stone, 
but appears to be confined to quartz leaders and threads. The principal veins 
