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Sec. II, Ch. 3: The Australian Diamond

Sec. II, Ch. 3: The Australian Diamond Page of 366 Sec. II, Ch. 3: The Australian Diamond Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
Australian Diamonds.                          97
north-west of Mudgee. The Cudgegong empties itself into the Macquarie, which is an affluent of the Darling. As soon as the gold diggers had set to work they detected Diamonds ; and in July, 1869, operations were conducted by the Australian Diamond Mines' Company of Melbourne,
At the Mudgee workings, gems were found in an old river-drift, believed to be of Pliocene age, distributed in local patches, which are remnants of deposits once widely spread over the district, but now partially removed by denudation. These ancient river-gravels occur at various distances from the actual channel, and at elevations of forty feet or more above the level of the river. They are generally covered by a protective layer of basalt, sometimes columnar ; and shafts have been sunk through the basaltic cap, so as to reach the under-lying Diamond-drift, which rests either on vertical palaeozoic strata- or on massive greenstone. The older drifts have been in some cases re-distributed, thus forming gravels of the Pleistocene and later periods. The drifts contain pebbles and boulders of Quartz, Tin-Stone, Rock-Crystal, Jasper, Agate, and other siliceous minerals, mixed with coarse sand and clay, and in some places united by a siliceous cement, into a compact mass. Among the pebbles of the gravel, the diligent seeker may find many of the rarer minerals, including crystals of Topaz, Sapphire, Ruby, Zircon, Spinel, and Garnet ; with Gold and Diamonds. The Diamonds are irregularly distributed through the gravels ; but hardly in sufficient numbers to pay for the working, though some of the Diamonds from the Cudgegong Field are remarkable for their beauty and purity of colour.
Within the last few years a Diamond-field has been opened up near Bingara, New South Wales. This town is about 400 miles north of Sydney, on the river Horton,
H
Sec. II, Ch. 3: The Australian Diamond Page of 366 Sec. II, Ch. 3: The Australian Diamond
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