directions
to it, and there is plenty of payable ore in sight (above water-level)
to keep it going constantly for years. Thirty thousand shares at 1d.
each, and 1d. per month, would soon provide a good mill near the town,
and if dividends were not the result, as dividends, they would flow
into the town every fortnight in the form of miners1 wages,
&c. There is plenty of willing labour about Gordon that would
gladly avail itself of facilities to earn a living near home, and a
well-equipped mill inviting a supply of stone would lead to strong
concerns directing their energies to mining its extensive lode
formations at depths.
On
returning to Egerton again, I inspected a wide extent of gold-bearing
drainage opened to the west of the town, and not far from the granite
outcrop. This is known as the Loch Find—one Lochlin McQueen having
opened it in the first place. Here is 30 to 40 feet in width of
quartz-permeated slate, associated with a vertical formation of quartz,
and, also, decomposed dyke material, the whole of which lies, as usual,
between arches in the corrugated rock beds. Works, so far, have been
confined to veins of quartz that form nearly horizontal floors of
resistance (" filter packs ") to defined lines of drainage. The mode of
gold occurrence, at points of obstruction on floors to these so-called
indicators, is exactly as noted in Ballarat East, Wedderburn, Moliagul,
and numerous other fields of the
State,
and as shown in Fig. 9. Several rich deposits have been met with in
shallow works. The whole width of gold-bearing slate, with its vertical
quartz formation, and its numerous wing veins of quartz, should be
under treatment, and a 25-head mill is wanted badly. The line is
parallel to the Egerton, and extends in outcrop to the north and south
for miles. Many other lines parallel to the Loch Find are to be seen in
outcrop to the west ; one of these is red with oxidized mundic, and is
said to be gold-bearing. Nothing has been done on it, or on any of the
other lines in the ranges of the vicinity. Indeed, only one of the
dozens of lode lines about Egerton has received attention. All are in
store for the miner to come. The Egerton line itself has received
attention in Egerton only until recently, but now that Hickey's party
has located it to the north, we may expect more life on the field.
Messrs.
Edmonds and Thomas, miners who have worked in the Egerton mines since
early times, have applied for the lease of an area, on which golden
quartz has been located, just south of the late Egerton Company's Rose
shaft. This is evidently the ontcrop of a member of the wing series,
one of which gave such rich returns in the Hose workings. There is a
shaft down 800 feet here, and now that attention has been called to the
relationship of the slate drainage to quartz structure in the matter of
gold deposition, we may hope for more mining life at this end of the
field, as well as to the north at Hiekey's. This field adds fresh
evidences in favour of extensive shallow crosscutting over all the
gold-bearing country of this State. All our gold deposition is
associated with slate layers, and we should know more
