Little Bendigo Gold Field

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	last 40 years, companies, known as the " Dowling and Eastwood," the "Bendigo," the " Monte Christo," the " New Monte Christo," the " Metropolitan," the " New Metropolitan," the " Norman," and the " Lothair," have carried on operations. Each company had worked on gold-bearing quartz, until the value of the yields fell below expenses. The fact is, none came prepared to mine, handle, and treat ore in bulk. Each company appears to have expected yields to equal in value the high yields obtained from preliminary trial crushings. When the average was ascertained, they recognised at once that, with their methods of mining and ore treatment, the ore was not payable. The lode structure here is somewhat as in Fig. 6.



	The almost horizontal character of these wing-veins, going through many almost vertical drains in gold slate, means the deposition of coarse gold in patches. The greater the patch, the greater the area drained to form it, but they are seldom large enough in this class of lode structure to repay exclusive search for them. It is necessary to mine the whole of the formations. There are instances, of course, where drainage to an almost horizontal obstruction has resulted in the deposit of gold in a patch, worth as much as £30,000, notably at Egerton; but as a rule the lode structure of a system, such as this, has not been found to have facilitated the concentration of drainage of gpld slate to form what is known as a "rich shoot." Many of such positions of deposit have been met with in each gold-field of this State, and the list of these shows values varying from .£10,000 to £1,000,000. We must not forget, however, that each has a terminal, and that the larger the deposit the greater the area drainer! to form it. Little Bendigo has, in the Temperance lode, an instance of such concentration of gold. In the Dimock's and the Monte Christo systems, the lode structure is such as to have prevented the concentration of gold in shoot form. The deposition is scattered in wide areas of fracture, and it becomes a question as to the average value of the whole formation (it is, more or less, gold-bearing all through), as to whether or not it will pay to handle it in bulk. To date, the quartz mined by the Monte Christo companies shows a record of about 35,000 tons crushed for a yield of about 10,000 ozs. of gold, being an average of nearly 6 dwts. per ton. The two Metropolitan companies commenced operations on the field comparatively lately. As usual, both worked on wrong methods, and ceased operations as soon as it was found that mining and ore treatment would have to be conducted on a larger scale, if success was to be attained. On the Metropolitan area there is a first-class shaft sunk to a depth of 320 feet, with opening works into the lode. The total amount of quartz raised by both companies was 6,137 tons, which yielded 1,606 ozs. of gold. On 6180. B

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