The
Pyrenees area must have been at one time a veritable soakage of
sulphides, quartz, gold, and silver, which has been raised, corrugated,
and subjected to one huge system of cracks, in which latter were formed
the lodes, and up which came a great rush of dyke material. This chain
of mountains had its southern end pushed easterly, apparently by the
elevation of the granite at Mount Cole and Mount Mistake, and its
northern end pushed westerly, apparently by the elevation of granite at
Mount Yowang. 'Its northern end spreads from the main range as does a
man's right hand fingers from the hand and arm, supposing the arm to be
laid in a direction a little to the west of north, with the palm of the
hand down, and the fingers spread in a direction more to the west of
north than is the arm. These fingers represent spurs to the mountain
range which descend to the north under plains of comparatively recent
origin—spurs which have between them, underneath the plains, lines of
ancient surface drainage, which are at the present time, no doubt,
underground conduits for water from the highlands of these mountains.
St.
Arnaud is situated on one of these spurs, at a point near where the
latter disappears beneath the plains ; and Stawell is 50 miles to the
southwest, on a spur represented by the thumb of the extended flat
right hand. South-westerly from St. Arnaud are low ranges, containing
many outcrops of quartz lodes, none of which latter has been sampled.
The folding of the rock-beds is very much as noted in the mountains,
the layers of slate and sandstone having their upturned edges running
about 30° to the west of north, and their downward slope (the dip)
being at an angle of about 45°. The lodes run almost with the lines of
the rock-layers, having been formed principally between the arches of
the hitter's corrugations. I noticed nothing in the way of mining
throughout the first 20 miles beyond the marks on the surface, here and
there, made by wandering loamers, until I reached the village of
Navarre, situated about 25 miles to the south-west of St. Arnaud. Here
an ancient sand-heap marks the position of a once active crushing mill,
and in the ranges around are mullock heaps of shallow works on golden
quartz lodes. South, in the ranges near Navarre, an almost deserted
village known as Barclay lies nestled in a locality of golden lodes ;
and not far from this another dead centre, known as Frenchmans, reposes
amidst mineral wealth, stored for the miner to come. Still further to
the south-west are ranges with the characteristic quartz lodes of these
mountains. Dyke material is everywhere associated with the lodes, and
here and there the remains of mining works mark points where the
glitter of gold in the quartz had drawn miners to make willing, but
weak, efforts after it. Looking south-west from the heights above the
village of Barclay, the town of Lands-borough is to be seen in a
bay-like valley, which comes from the south-east, between mountain
ranges, and goes north-west into the main valley of this northern
watershed of the Divide of the State, known as the Wimmera. About
midway in the valley, which is about 12 miles in length, and on a main
coach road from Elmhurst, the town of Landsborough is situated. This
valley, as might be expected, contains large wash-dirt deposits, and an
extensive system of " aftercut" gutters—gutters cut by creek waters in
the terraces of wash-dirt deposits left by the tides as the land rose
slowly above sea-level.
On
the fringes of the valley are remains of early wash-dirt mining in the
dirt heaps of the various lines of holes put down by the diggers of the
"fifties," as they followed the runs of tributary gutters clown towards
the deep ground. Several attempts have been made to sample this deep
ground, and, judging by the deserted state of the line of these
eiforts, nothing of much
