6 
some ten miles or so. Then the metalliferous slates reappear with tin and alluvial gold. This is on Maude 
creek, where gold is reported, but the country does not appear to me to be very promising. 
Limestone .—About the telegraph station at the Katherine river the banks form a tableland some 60ft. 
to 100ft. above the stream. It is covered with an outcrop of grey limestone which has weathered into 
boulders and pinnacles of a very rough character. It forms low ranges about five or six miles from the 
north bank of the stream. These ranges are very rough, and quite inaccessible to horses. 
MINERALS. 
Gold .—From what has been already said, it will appear that the gold of this country is found in exactly 
the same manner as in other parts of the world. It is needless to repeat what these conditions are. The 
stone in those reefs which have been worked is rich, and ■would pay well to -work in any country but this, 
■where wages and cartage are so enormously high. The gold generally is of high standard. The total 
amount exported from August, 1880, to September, 1885, is 121,779oz., of the value of £432>959. This, of 
course, is not by any means a full statement of the gold obtained in the Territory. The amount is large, but 
divided amid the number of mines worked, and the number of miners employed, it is relatively very large, 
and shows the richness of the country. 
Of two things I am convinced—first, that not one of the mines hitherto worked or abandoned has been 
exhausted of the gold ; secondly, not twenty-five per cent, of the auriferous reefs of the country have been 
fairly tested. If a prospector does not get a good assay from a bagful of stone, which he digs from the top 
of the “blow,” the ■whole is condemned. The test, of course, is utterly insufficient. The chances are much 
against the prospector striking on the shoot of gold at the first blow of his pick. Who does not know the 
thousands of instances where rich mines have lain idle for years from bad prospecting r A slight examination 
convinces one that many of the reefs in the Territory .contain rich metal, even though the prospector has 
turned away from them. The gold in most of the reefs is remarkably clean and pure, with little sulphur or 
arsenic or other troublesome minerals. 
Some mines are an exception, and the sulphurous tailings in them are considerable. It would be well if the 
miners would follow an important piece of advice, which has reference to tailings. They should be stacked 
like compost heaps, with equal quantities of leaves, branches, grass, or any decaying vegetable matter. In 
a couple of years the pyrites will be considerably or completely decomposed, and can be treated in the mill 
without any roasting. Pyrites heaps are often very rich in gold, and will soon pay for their keep. 
It may certainly be said that the quartz reefs of the Northern Territory have never had justice done 
them by first-class machinery. Indeed, it is stated that the Union reefs have been brought to ruin by the 
battery employed, which let large quantities of amalgam go down the creek; but with small capital, 
enormously high wages, and equally high cartage, it could hardly be otherwise. When these shall have 
been adjusted to the rates of the value of the quartz, then the day of the mines of the Northern Territory will 
have come. Everything is hoped from the railway to bring this about; there is plenty of material to work 
upon. I regret being unable to give the proportion of gold produced to the quartz crushed. I believe the 
average is high, generally over an ounce. Some of the crushings of the top stone have been enormously rich. 
Thus at the extended Union, in 1877, forty tons of quartz yielded 740 ounces of gold. This is exceptional, 
and belongs to the returns which miners always expect to obtain from the capping of reefs, where the gold 
lies, which has weathered out of the stone during countless ages. 
In reference to this, I have been asked to give an opinion as to whether deep sinking will give increased 
returns. For increased returns, I should say that there is nothing peculiar in the ground which would lead 
one to expect it. In those mines where the shoots of gold have a tendency to form pockets of metal, the 
ground may become richer at any moment, especially where the quiirtz lode is intersected by veins of diorite ; 
here rich gold will nearly always be found, and often as much in the diorite as the quartz. All questions 
connected with deep sinking are best answered by the diamond drill, but seeing how few of the mines are able to 
pay for an efficient battery, it is hardly to be expected that they could pay for drill exploration. Besides, the 
question of deep sinking is not important. Just now there is plenty of payable stone within easy reach in most 
of the mines if labor and cartage were only obtainable at a price commensurate with the value of gold. 
In the alluvial workings the conditions are precisely similar to alluvial gold in other parts of the world, 
the sinking is shallow, sometimes merely surfacing, and the gravel scarcely waterworn; this is the more 
extraordinary, as the rainfall is much greater here than in Victoria or New South Wales, where the drift 
gravel is so much rounded, but the elevation is much greater. 
The alluvial diggings are generally in shallow valleys with low ridges on each side. Curiously enough, 
rich gold has been found in valleys where on the ridges forming the valley not a trace of a quartz reef 
could be found. Finely-divided gold, no doubt, exists to some extent in the slates, and this must be the 
explanation of fine gold in alluvial far from any reefs, just like stream tin. True stream tin is not derived 
from reefs or lodes, but from finely disseminated particles of tin in granite. Nuggets arc not common, and 
never of very large size, The very fine gold would appear to be inexhaustible, as the Chinese always seem 
able to make a living, no matter how often they turn over the old headings. 
It only remains to say that, as the reefs containing good gold are far from being all discovered in the 
Territory, so it is with the alluvial; there are gullies and fiats innumerable which have never been even 
prospected ; they are all connected with the auriferous slates, and even with quartz reefs. To name them 
would be endless, but I especially mention the country between Mount Wells and Mount Douglas, amid the 
ranges on the east side until the ranges fall away, a distance of between forty and fifty miles. 
The fluviatile conglomerate is full of quartz boulders—in fact it is a drift derived from quartz lodes. 
It maybe worth while trying whether gold is to be found at the base. I do not expect it, however; 
these drifts have an ugly resemblance in character to what Mr. Selwyn named the barren mioccne alluvial 
drifts of Victoria, in which gold is never found. It is at present inexplicable why this should be so, and it 
is very odd that the phenomenon should be repeated in North Australia, but it needs further iuvestigatiou. 
At present all the alluvial diggings, except Bridge Creek, are entirely in the hands of Chinese, and 
Bridge Creek soon will be. A European who expects £4 10s. to £5 per week, and who gets it here, will 
find, even on a rich alluvial gold field, a poor field for his labor. While this state of things exists it would 
take a very rich goldfield indeed to make much change in the prospects of the Northern Territory. 
Silver .—All the silver lodes that I have seen in the Territory are silver-load lodes. Silver is also asso¬ 
ciated with gold in one or two mines, and with copper. I have seen no horn silver, or any of those ores 
which make a speciality of the mines of the Silverton lodes. Some of the so-called pyrites from the gold 
reefs 
