The
Johnston wing formation is, as stated, very patchy, but some of the
patches have proved to be very rich. Taking the whole formation,
however, it is low-grade. It keeps a big staff of men employed, under
the direction of Mr. Bibby.
Situated
on this range, and belonging to the Johnston system of lodes, are
points where other deposits have been worked out. No work is being
carried on at these points now, although I understand that the New
Options Proprietary intends to test the country in the vicinity of
each, by cross-cutting, at an early date. One, known as the United
Miners, situated south of the Johnston, is credited with being the
richest situation ever opened in the area under examination.
I
could get nothing definite concerning the total or average yields from
any of the mines on this field, although I learnt that they var ied
between a pennyweight or two to about 10 ounces to the ton. In all the
abandoned mines the situations that happened to be found on the surface
have been worked to a finish, or an apparent finish, and in more than
one of these mines the gold is said to have been lost in a break
displacement, over which further exploiting has not been done. I cannot
help thinking that cross-cutting at either end of the favoured
situations in these old works is the right procedure, in consideration
of the peculiar relationship of the strike and dip of the lodes to the
strike and dip of the rock-beds.
Up
the western branch of the Ovens, on the west side of the Johnston spur,
and going south towards Mt. St. Bernard, Mr. Cameron is opening works
high on the spur, on a lode from which trial crushings of about 200
tons in the aggregate are said to have yielded 18 dwts. to the ton. Mr.
Carneron informed me that he had sampled 20 chains in length of the
outcrop for payable results. The lode averages about 4 feet in width,
and -underlies to the east, as usual, a little more than the rock
layers. It lies on a bumpy foot-wall, and the lens-shape feature is
present in its quartz •• makes." The bulk of the lode, however, is
composed of fractured slate which is permeated with inch-wide vertical
and horizontal quartz veins. The whole of this material is
gold-bearing, and I noted gold in the leaves of the slate itself.
Indeed, many of the lines of slate drainage in this field, as in many
of the other fields visited, contain free gold, attached to the slate
