169 
Molybdenite Workings at Wangrabelle. 
Molybdenite lodes are being worked near Wangrabelle townsbip, in 
allotment 19, parish of Wangrabelle. A prospecting party, of which 
Mr. Henry Allan and William Bridle are principals, started sinking hero 
in Jnne, 1911. A shaft is down about 70 ft., and a level opened at 
50 ft. deep for 5 ft. easterly and 45 ft. westerly. The lode in the level 
strikes south 78° west, dips 75° northerly, is 12 in. to 15 in. thick in the 
east face, and 12 in. in the west face. For the full length of 50 ft. the 
lode, which is of solid quartz, shows strong and unbroken in the level, 
and gives the impression that it may prove to be of considerable extent, 
both longitudinally and vertically. Molybdenite, iron pyrites, white 
mica, and molyhdic ochre occur freely in the lode. The molybdenite is 
in laminations and patches in the lode, and in specks and joint faces of 
the adjoining granite. Mr. Bridle says that in the bottom of the shaft 
(not accessible owing to water) the lode is 18 in. wide, showing molyb¬ 
denite freely; and that in the shaft, from the surface to 50 ft. deep, the 
average is about 10 in. As far as the lode has been exposed, it has on 
the footwall side a band of greenish-grey igneous rock about 12 in. wide, 
which may be an alteration product of the granite or a dyke. This 
rock carries small quartz veins, and molybdenite on faces and in specks. 
About 15 chains south-easterly from the shaft described a second 
shaft (No. 2 on plan) is down 14 ft. on another quartz-molybdenite vein. 
This shaft is about 6 
chains west of the 
boundary, between 
allotments 19 and 21. 
Surface soil and broken 
reef show to 7 ft. 
deep, then a solid 
quartz lode, 18 in. to 
2 ft. wide to the 
bottom. Splashes of 
molybdenite in the 
solid quartz start to 
only are visible above. 
//•’2SH4rr 
Fig. 60.—Bridle and Allan’s Workings, Wangrabelle. 
Scale, 8 chains to 1 inch. 
show at 12 ft. or 13 ft. deep ; odd colours 
The strike is nearly east and west, dip 65° to 70° to the north. 
f 
Several outcrops of apparently similar lodes occur within a radius 
of 10 chains of Bridle’s workings. The prospectors of the district 
knap the outcropping quartz and examine it for traces of molybdenite, 
but do not expect to see the mineral freely until a depth of 20 ft. or 
30 ft. is reached. Specimens of stone, from the surface and 50 ft. 
deep of the country rock and the footwall band of altered rock or dyke, 
are now in the Geological Survey museum. A parcel of about one ton 
of picked ore sent from No. 1 shaft to Melbourne assayed 7 per cent, 
molybdenum. 
