AURIFEROUS IRONSTONE.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 708, 26 January 1853, Page 3

AURIFEROUS IRONSTONE.

(From the " Empire," Jan. 4.) A well-known mercantile gentleman in Sydney forwarded to England, in tlie beginning of lust year, a specimen of the "auriferous ironstone" found on what is termed the Wentworth Gold Field. A letter from this gentleman's brother, who resides at Manchester, was received a day or two ago, dated September 18, acknowledging the receipt of the specimen. "1 have just received," says the writer, " the piece of ironstone brought from Sydney by Mr. Hindson, and I got my friend Professor Williamson, of-Owen's College, and Binney, the geologist, and Ilarland, of the Guardian, to come and look at it. We had a long talk and a merry meeting over it, and the enclosed is a paragraph which Ilarland has put in this morning's Guardian about it." The Manchester Guardian's paragraph is as follows : " Auriferous Ironstone from Australia.—We saw the other day a mass of ironstone, weighing about lOlbs., which was as it were powdered over with small granular bits of gold, some as fine as dust. The lump is clearly the fragment of a larger mass, and in all probability has come from a vein, and been picked up pretty nearly in situ. All we know of its discovery is that it was brought from some place in the interior, the name of which is not stated, to Sydney, where it was purchased rather as a curiosity, than because of its intrinsic value, by a gentleman who gave £'ls for it; but whose estimate is, that the gold contained in it would not be worth more than about £'lo. lie sent it to a relative in Manchester, who favoured us with an examination of it. It is noticeable, because of its having caused considerable difference of opinion among residents of the colony, who know something of geology ; some contending that ironstone does not contain gold, ergo, that what is seen in this stone cannot be gold. Others hold that there is no reason why ironstone should not be a matrix for gold. Two of our ablest local geologists (Professor \V. C. Williamson and E. W. Binney), on examining this mass, are of the latter opinion ; and one of them states that the iron pyrites got in Furness, in the north of this country, is rich in gold; but then the pyrite is only found in thin veins of an inch or two in thickness, and never in such quantity as to make it remunerative to extract the gold it contains. There is strong reason for believing, therefore, that the ironstone of Australia does contain gold; though in what proportion it is not at present easy to ascertain If in this lump of lOlbs. there should be gold worth £lO, —that is, a pound sterling of gold per pound weight of ironstone, —we need not say that it would well repay the labour of crushing it—(for which operation Mr. Nasmythe has recently adapted his tremendous hammer) —and huddling; or it might be melted in the usual way. If it should prove that gold in considerable quantities pervades the ironstone, which exists in vast beds of horizontal strata, this would augur a much more permanent supply of the precious metal in Australia than even the auriferous quartz, abundant as that has proved to be, is likely to yield. In this respect the lump is of great interest." We publish these extracts without offering any opinion of our own on the value of Mr. Wentworth's gold, but simply to supply information touching the question, which is daily becoming more difficult of solution, as to the substances and formations in which gold-may not be found. The recent arrivals from New Zealand have brought us gold in deposits of an entirely new character, which seem to confound alike the doctrines of of geology and the experience of modern explorers, and are calculated to induce the belief that the secrets of nature in this respect are but dimly comprehended by the wisest. The beautiful'thought which gushed in a flood of poetry from the great but self-humbled mind of Sir Isaac Newton—that he was like a child gathering shells on the beach, with the vast ocean of truth all undiscovered before him—might occur to the wisdom of our geologists. Where so much is to be learned, it will be a public service, at any time, for those whe have the opportunity, to contribute their mite to the general stock of our information, by sending specimens ot our mineral products to scientific persons for analysis and examination. Much might be done, in tins way, with a very trifling cost of time or labour, and the thing be made, at the same time, a matter of I elevated amusement.