In
regard to " slides." There has been a sliding action, or grinding of
one wall on the other, on all smooth-walled lode lines, on all cross
breaks, and on all longitudinal breaks. Hence all are slides, but the
miners know only the longitudinal breaks as " slides."
It
is evident to the writer that the more extensive and richer.the
favoured situation the greater the area under tribute for the supply of
valuable minerals ; in other words, the richer the " make " the greater
the extent of poor lode in its vicinity.
The
Pyrenees Company's area at Redbank contains a favoured situation of the
long, almost vertical, and comparatively thin kind—a situation which to
date is said to have yielded more than 10,000 ounces of smelted gold,
taken from stone which yielded from a few pennyweights to four or five
ounces to the ton. What extent of the favoured part operated upon
remains to the miner after ages of surface wear is not known, and, as
remarked above, nothing but an underground inspection would allow of a
reading of value to aspirants for further golden wealth from it. It is
said that at one point below, iu the vicinity of a "tight" point on the
lode line, a thick lump of quartz was met with from which was taken a
barrow-load of stone containing about 600 ounces of gold. This was
evidently at a point where aline of drainage intersected the lode—a
line known as an "indicator" coming in from a slate layer. The whole
lode worked, judging from the numerous shafts in the area, appears to
have its line of greatest deposition pitching at an angle of about 45°
from the vertical, to the south, and, judging by the nature of the
slate associated with it, other lines, no doubt parallel to the one
worked, remain to be met with at greater depths.
