Numerous
and rich were the outcrops of lodes in and around Tarnagulla,. but with
the exception of the effort at the Yorkshire there is no mining work
going- on at present. As elsewhere, all past effort has been devoted to
the wide formations of quartz. Mr. ('lark, an old identity of the
place, has shallow works west of the town on a formation which has
returned him wages at times. This formation has numerous wing
extensions going out through a width of the well-known gold-slate.
Although the lines of drainage in this slate are to be seen very
plainly in shallow works near his shaft, no search has been made for
points where such lines cross the wing quartz. One drain, or indicator
we may as well call it, is to be seen going down nearly vertically in
the country to the west of his shaft, in a very suggestive manner, and
prospecting should be done at its contact with a floor or floors,
otherwise known as wing veins, of quartz. A little south from this is a
well defined arch in the rock layers, and I noticed the dyke material
about everywhere. As this system goes south, many "runs" of rich
washdirt going away to the east appear to have been richest where on
top of the lode outcrops. In one gully the gold was particularly
nuggety. It is said that a fossicker who found a piece weighing 15 lbs.
in the clay near the bottom of a shallow washdirt deposit, and went to
the old country, discovered, on his return some years after, while
showing a "new chum" how to prospect, another nugget weighing 38 lbs.
just under the surface.
Along
this line of outcrop, for a mile or more, are a lot of shallow works,
and to the west of it, and near the town, I noticed an outcrop of a
cross lode, on which little sampling has been done. Going south, and a
little east, I passed over ranges of lode country, and noted more than
one point where rich nuggety patches have been found in wing-vein
quartz occurrences associated with indicators in gold-slate. Five miles
from Tarnagulla Waanyarra is reached. The old name for this place is
Jones' Creek, and the washdirt deposits in its gullies and flats are
said to have been very rich in coarse and nuggety gold. The outcrops of
wide lodes, of the type peculiar to the district, all in very
pronounced gold-slate, have attracted attention for some time, but the
mining being conducted is all shallow. The wing-vein extensions from
the main lines are receiving the most attention, and in Raven and
Gourlay's mine 850 ozs. of coarse and nuggety gold have been grot from
veins which were followed in their series to a depth of not more
than
50 feet from the surface. These veins of quartz belong to a wide system
of quartz formations, formed, as usual, between the arches of the
corrugated strata, and the latter contain several lines of wide lode
formations, and many narrow lines of the indicator type. There has
been much twist strain applied in creating these lines of crack and
their numerous wing and fin-
