Clunes Gold Field

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	the Pyrenees field, near Moonambel, and the time may come when large mills will be putting the country rock of the lode system through, for low but payable averages. Not only this gold-bearing country, but large portions of the lodes themselves, remain to be worked. In following down the parts of the lodes presumed to contain the rich gold, fully half of the lode material was left in the works, to a depth, on the average, of 700 feet on all the lodes with the exception of the Western, which, according to the working plans of the mines, had nothing done on it below the 1,000-ft, level. I was informed that there remains a stretch of country just south of the old Port Phillip Company's mill that has received no attention below 350 feet. All the lodes of the system pass through it, and rich yields have been taken from its shallow formations. Miners are now engaged in surface works on masses of gold-bearing stone here. If mined and treated in a big-way (not less than a 50-head mill), this stone should pay well on a 3-dwt. average. A 50-head mill, with 12-cwt. heads, 120 4-iu. drops per minute, with a 200 per inch grating, would put through at least 1,200 tons per week : 1,200 tons at 3 dwts. means £720. The mill treatment would cost, according to the cost at the Star of the East mine, Ballarat, Is. 8d. per ton, and the mining and haulage could be done comfortably for Gs. Below the parts of this lode system already worked—below the 900-ft. level, say—the country is all virgin, and even with the limited scope for reading the structural arrangements of the lode masses of this golden mile, enough was seen to make it plain that the saddle and leg phase of lode structure continues down for at least a mile, perhaps to a mile and a half. As remarked above, the north and south extent of this length of more open—bulged— fracture, exceeds a mile (see Fig. 3, longitudinal section), and, following the rule of proportion in such matters, as noted more particularly in the detail structure of lode formations, the depth exceeds this—say a mile (see Pig. 3, transverse section). This is about 5,000 feet, at which depth, we may rest assured, the temperature is about as high as the miner could tolerate. The deepest mine in Bendigo is down to 3,860 feet. The deepest shaft in



	Ballarat is down to 2,500 feet, and in Stawell to 2,400 feet. With the exception of Bendigo, there is not much mining on any of our gold-fields below 1,000 feet, for the simple reason that the want of knowledge of lode structure, in its relation to rich situations of gold deposit in lodes, resulted

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