The
country described in this report is situated about 23 miles to the
south of Ballarat. The area includes the old centres of alluvial mining
known as Corindhap, Dereel, and Pinchgut on the south, Mount Misery
Creek on the west, part of the Durham Ranges on the east, and the Whim
Holes and Napoleons on the north. It extends, in all, about 15 miles
north and south by 5 miles east and west. It consists of a spur,
composed of slate and sandstone, that runs east and west from the Main
Divide of the State, which passes in a southwesterly direction about 8
miles to the north-west of the area examined. Many minor ranges run
south to the volcanic plains near Rokewood and Mount Mercer and north
into the valley of Ballarat. The highest part of the range has an
altitude above sea-level of about 2,200 feet; while Rokewood on the
plains, 10 miles to the south, has an altitude above sea-level of about
600 feet.
Remnants
of once extensive plateaux and terraces of wash-dirt deposits crown
the heights throughout the area. Many of the deposits are in the form
of rusty iron-cemented beds, in some instances containing boulders of
quartz 5 feet In diameter. At Enfield itself, and, indeed, on the
different localities of alluvial mining in the area, the diggers of the
fifties worked through extensive deposits of cemented wash to reach the
gold below. Ever since those days, fossickers roam the localities,
earning a precarious living in "old ground. The whole of the area
examined is permeated with quartz-lode systems. All these lode systems
represent fracture lines, which originated as the crumpling of the
rock-beds was in progress. These beds of sedi-mentary rock, whose
aggregate thickness is no more in comparison to the diameter of the
earth than five is to 25,000, extend throughout all the gold-mining
centres of our State ; and it is reasonable to suppose that the
fracturing caused by the forces which crumpled the rocks from almost
flat layers to corrugated layers, extended to great depths. All the
quartz lodes [Report sent in 22nd July, 1902.]
Jk 2
