THE VICTORIA GOLD FIELD. [From the "Sydney Morning Herald, "August 20.]

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 567, 20 September 1851, Page 3

THE VICTORIA GOLD FIELD. [From the " Sydney Morning Herald, " August 20.]

That gold lias been discovered in our sister colony is now nscei mined beyond all doubl. Of the quantity, and the piospects of working it successfully, it is yet 100 eaily to predicate. From the vanous accounts, obviously dealing in many cxaggeiations, with which the columns of our conlcmparies are filled, we select the following from a letter addressed to (he Geelong Adveiliser by Mr. G. A. Wathen, who dates fiom Mr. Macullum's S'ation, five miles west of the present diggings:— The '• Chines Diggings" are on the Deep Creek (a tributary to the Loddon), a few hundred yards from Mr. Camerons station. They have been commonly supposed to be situated in the Pyienees, but very erroneously, as they are fifteen miles distant fiom that chain. The existence of gold at this locality has.it seems been known for the last eighteen months to the neighboui ing settlers. Mr Cameron distinctly asserts that be led Dr. IJrnbn to the spot, and pointed out that gold was imbedded in the quartz vein. Dr. Biuhn htis, however, the merit of first making the public acquainted with the fact. The Deep Creek ig one of those rivulets so common in this colony, running at the bottom of a deep land cleft, winding in sweeping curves through the trappcan plain, and not distinguishable till you are close to its edge. The gencial form of a section of the valley is that of a blunted V, the sides occasionally opening and leaving a rich alluvial flat between them. The inclosing bands of the valley are glassed, but occasionally broken by an escarpment of rugged basaltic rocks. Sevearl bold swelling lava hills, clad with the richest veidurc. rise out of the trappcan table land, a few miles distant. Mount Beckuith, a granitic ridge, is about- five miles to the west. The gold is found disseminated in several parallel quartz veins or dykes, which pass through this mass of trap, and protrude from it on the steep banks of the valley. There is no tract ; of aunfcious alluvium. The gold is almost entirely derived fiom the quartz vein itself. Hence the works here would be more piopcrly characterised as Mining | than Digging. On the north side of the valley are seen four parallel quartz veins running north and south thiough amass of sofc decomposed rock. The main vein forms the axis of the spur formerly mentioned. Most of Iho miners are at work upon this and have quarried it, or laid it open, for a hundred yards up the slope of the bank, and on the plain above. The vein sometimes ciops out on the surface, and is sometimes covered by a couple of feet of earth, all of which seems to be auriferous, though to no greit extent. The vein itself is about a yaid thick, the quartz is of a yellowish, j glistening white, intersected by innumerable clefts and joints, so that when quarried, it falls to pieces in fragments of all sizes, down to that of a nut. The fissures aie filled with greasy red earth, highly impregnated with oxide of iron, and sometimes nn inch in thickness. This fenuginous faith is veiy productive in gold. The lessor joints are coated with the iron oxide, and the quartz itself is often honeycombed with cells line.l with the same. The whole of the cirth and quartz is curicd down to the cieck and washed in the cradle or dish. This vein runsdue north and south, and may be traced on the surtace of the trap plain for about a mile ; the extent and depth to which it is auriferous arc of course unknown. At the spot where the cieek traverses it, the quartzobe dyke is probably intersected by a fault or " cross course." which gave passage to the waters. Indeed, the whole valley probably originates in a great cleft or fissure in the muss of trnp rock, which here covers the country, and the dyke of quartz would have been cut off by the same subterranean movement that cleft the trap. On the south side of the valley the quaitz dyke re-nppcars protruding fiom the bank, as a hard rock with veins and cavities filled with soft earthy matter (a kind of ilookan). Its direction is shifted to the south-west, or towards Mount Beckwith, but is soon lost in the mass of trap. About fifty men and a few women and ch'ldren were already at work, and the Local Government had sent up a party of mounted troopers, under Capta'n Dani, to piesei ye order. Of the result of the miners' operations theie are no authentic accounts before us, very little of that obtained having either been sold or weighed. Of course, exaggerations, both as to success and failure, were rife, as with the Ophir diggings during the first month or two after their discovery. From a lecture on gold, recently delivered by Dr. Bruhn, at Geelong, we take the following remarks as to the golden prospects of Victoria: — "The locks containing fold in other countries arc mica, hlatc, chy slate, hornblende, talcose slate, granite, sicnnUe, greenj stone, serpentine, porphyry, bas*lt. &c. We find these rocks in the Pyiennees, as in the Mount Macedon ranges and doubtless in many other parts of the colony. Many of the auriferous mountains in other countries are transmuted, metamorphosed, or derated by the intrusion of igneous masses. itocks of this kind geneially abound in gold. In the Mount Macedon langf-s, arid in the Pyrenees, trap, greenstone, serpentine, porphyry, basalt, and the outpouiings of volcanoes, have erupted the earlier formations; and it is r evident that the black clay slate of the Pyrenees became red from the influence of igneous eruptions. In California the clay slate underlies the gieat diluvial detritus of the gold. But the gold in the Pyienees undeilies the clay slate. It is now believed that a parallelism of auriferous mountaiu ranges with the meridian has taken place. The gold fields in New South Wales are considered to be analogous to the rich gold fields ot the Ural, in Siberia ; our Giampians, Pyienees, Mount Alexander, and all exhibit the same characteristics. When the extent of our piincipal gold langes corresponds with that of other gold bearing ranges, wo may therefore t-xpoct that the same conditions will yield similar results. When the detritus of our own principal ranges corresponds with that of other ranges wheie gold occuis, we may expect the same results from similar conditions. For instance, if it be an established fact, that gold lies between the 110 Sand 145° degree of longitude, west and south, of the 37° I degree of latitude, we may cxppct to find auriferous ore in the direction of Mount Elephant, all the way towards Melbourne or Geelong, and higher up, from the I Pyrenees, over Mount Alexander, towards Seymour. The results obtained in the Bdthurst gold diggings and vicinity, correspoud with the results obtained fiom the examination of other countries of similar formation, and which are also of the same geological epochs. Outranges are in every way similar to the Sydney ranges ; and therefore there is v every probability that we may find gold here as well as there. Ihe slopes of our principal ranges are westerly, towards our internal desert, the sune as occurs jn Sibcua, or the Ural mountains. Therefore the am ifcious detiitus is more likely to be found on the western than on the eastern slope of oru ranges. "When we know that our piincipal lauges conespond with those of other langes in which j gold has been found, and when we know that such locks in other countnes produce gold, we may amve at the J safe conclusion tha<- gold abounds in our own mountain ranges, whcie similar conditions exist. Moie than this, we may expect large deposits to exist, which will take a long time to be worked out. There is gold in the Pyienees; theie is gold in the ranges ncai limn Bank; thcic is gold at Major Newman's place, near j ] the Meiri Creek, sixteen miles from Melbourne. The whole soil is charged with auiifeions matier. Theie can be no question of the existence, not merely of goldi j but of platinum, precious stones, and othci valuable mineral deposits, and the lecturci firmly believes, th^t

befoio m.my weeks arc passed ovei, dWeovcncs will be niiide, which will not only astound the colonists of Victoria, but literally astonish the people of England."