8 
Sedimentary Formations. 
In consequence of the absence of marine Tertiary deposits in 
New South Wales, and the occurrence of a more complete series 
of the strata in the sections of the Carboniferous formation, there 
has arisen a difficulty in collating the gold deposits with those of 
Victoria ; and, in this respect, at present the upper deposits in 
the former province have not been assigned with much precision 
to the epochs adapted by Mr. Selwyn for the latter. And it also 
follows that his view of the distinct ages of Pliocene auriferous 
and Miocene non-auriferous gravels cannot bo tested in New 
South Wales, if, indeed, it has not already been tested by the 
actual discovery of gold in the so-called Miocene deposits them¬ 
selves, as they occur in Victoria. 
So far as is at present known, gold in Victoria is derived 
chiefly from the Lower Silurian formation ; but researches con¬ 
ducted for me at H.M. Mint in Sydney urovc that it exists in 
almost every distinctive rock of New South Wales. In this pro¬ 
vince the alluvial deposits arc not so extensive as in Victoria; 
but this probably arises from the fact previously mentioned of the 
striko being in Victoria transverse to the direction of the 
Cordillera; by which means the currents which distributed the 
drift had a wider area of gold-bearing materials to denude than 
in New South Wales, where, I conclude from numerous examples, 
the principal currents were to northward, so that in that province 
they would coincide with the direction of the Cordillera, and not 
accumulate the deposits in such low-lying extensive regions as 
those of the Murray Districts. The same objection would obtain 
on the supposition of gradual waste and accumulation from less 
powerful agency than that of a general rush of water. It is not, 
however, to be doubted that there is an enormous amount of gold 
yet untouched in numerous places in New South Wales, not only 
in the quartz lodes (or reefs) but in gullies and plains where 
alluvial gold diggings will yet be discovered. 
Dr. Duncan, in an elaborate paper on some of the fossil Tertiary 
corals of Australia (Proceedings of tlie Geological Society , August , 
1870), suggests the propriety of discarding the divisions into 
Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene, of the Australian Tertiaries, and 
of substituting the general term Kainozoic, since he considers 
them merely as successive deposits of one continuous epoch. But, 
as proved by my own researches more than twenty years ago, 
much of the gold in New South Wales is derived from iron pyrites 
in granite, and in beds of sedimentary origin, consisting of 
siliceous matter cemented by iron derived from decomposed 
pyrites, whilst it lias been shown by Aplin, Daintree, Ilacket, 
Wilkinson, and others, that much gold in Victoria and Queens¬ 
land is due to the intrusive agency of felstones, elvauites, and 
diorite. The dykes or reefs of quartz in the Silurians are there¬ 
fore not, as once supposed, the exclusive sources of Australian 
