followed
(see Fig. 3). In fact, in the 1,190-ft. level western workings of the
Port Phillip Company, its eastern leg touched a formation which seems
to he an eastern leg from a system of arches and legs to the west,
running parallel to the system worked. In all such lode systems as the
Clunes—systems generated by a slight twist strain—many leg cracks
continue to the east and west down and through inverted arches to other
parallel arches and their systems of fractures. At such parts, the
experience gained in formations with a regular underlay was misleading
to miners not well acquainted with cause and effect in lode structure.
Lodes would he met with underlying in an opposite direction to the
underlay of the rock layers, and some underlying one way and some
another. All these features are due to the twist strain applied during
the latter part of the corrugating process the rock-beds have been
subjected to. It represents a cracking between systems that form one
big system, and in the parallel arches on either side of such
occurrences the more regular cracking known as saddles and legs are to
be found, not always, however, containing lode matter. Mr. R. H. Bland,
late general mining engineer to the Port Phillip Company, got his main
shaft down to 1,700 feet. While sinking still further, with the shaft
45 feet below this level, a cross-cut which had been driven west for,
it is said, 180 odd feet, had a hole put into its face for shooting
purposes, from which a strong rush of water, with quartz fragments,
came. This frightening the' men (the pumps were not down below 1,300
feet), sinking and cross-cutting were stopped, and have not been
resumed since. Not long after this the company ceased operations. If
the sinking had been continued to 2,000 feet,j as proposed by Mr.
Bland, it is probable that other arches and legs would have been met
with in cross-cutting east and west; in fact, there is reason to
believe that the formation met with in the western cross-cut at the
1,700-ft. level is a leg from a saddle in the unexplored country below
the 1,000-ft. level. It is very probable that many arches with legs
remain to lie mined in the Clunes golden mile below those opened and
partly worked, and above a depth of 5,000 feet. The widespread nature
of the cause of the fractures did not produce the isolated effect
exhibited in the full width of the golden mile, without the effect
being extended in depth also.
There
have been eleven shafts put down on the Clunes lode system, the deepest
of which is, as mentioned, that of the Port Phillip Company, viz.,
1,745 feet. These shafts are scattered along the' golden mile, and,
with one or two exceptions, could be easily put into working order. Two
steam plants with 20-in. pumping columus would soon lift all the water
out of the old workings and drain the country, after which one column
would hardly find enough water to keep it going half-time.
Not
only within the area of old works are the conditions favorable to
profitable mining, but also for miles to the north and south of Clunes.
where no sampling has been done, the lode features are inviting.
Immediately north of the town there is much lode-stuff of a " mullocky
" or " stockwork " nature. The gold in this class of lode is not
concentrated in short or "big patch" form, as in lodes of all quartz,
but is scattered through the lode mass in exact accordance with the
arrangement of the hundred and one points of obstruction, viz., the
meshwork of small veins of quartz, to the gravity " pull" on the golden
liquids circulating in the lode. The General Gold-fields Company, of
Stawell, under the guidance of Mr. Wearmonth, is opening works on
mullocky lode stuff to the north of Stawell. Trials of the material,
composed of quartz, gold-slate, and dyke matter, saturated with iron
pyrites, have yielded an average of 5 dwts. to the ton. Nothing
