Untitled

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 863, 9 November 1853, Page 4

[Correspondent of the Melbournt Argus, October 9.] The system of second bottoming, to which I have before referred, is now attracting general attention in this district, because- therein is really involved the question of whether there is not a second Bendigo, richer perhaps in its auriferous treasures than the oue we are now working. Should it turn out that the gold is found in remunerating quantities beneath these pipe-clay, sandstone, and slate floors, from which it has hitherto been gathered, there will be such a reaction in regard to gold-digging as will astonish the world. If we look into geological and mineralogical theories, we shall find nothing to guide us in this matter. California and Australia have, in their effects, upset all Geological Societies, and the gold-digger's pick and shovel have proved more truths than all the theories laid down by the learned. This question of second layers of golden deposits has long agitated the gold-fields, and there has been a great diversity of opinion in regard to it. Gold has been found, to my knowledge, some feet deep in the pipe clay, but all experience goes against the supposition that it is distributed throughout that formation ; as to whether there are any well authenticated cases of the precious metal being found underneath any very extensive masses of this strange deposit (the pipeclay), I am not in a posiiion to determine. I know of no instance where the investigation has been carried on sufficiently satisfactorily to ground an opinion upon. Whether the gold is found on the pipeclay, or the othei bottoms on which we have hitherto sought it, is therefore an enigma which the Bendigo diggers are determined, if possible, to solve. With this view, then, a number of them are going down on some of the White Hills, but secrecy is the order of the day on this head ; indeed, I do not believe any party has yet fairly bottomed. Many are down forty and fifty feet through the pipeclay ; still the virgin clay sticks to them. Some, indeed, have come upon an occasional layer of soft sandstone ; others are blasting through sandstoue rock, hard as the hearts of some of the Commissioners, while another party fine large veins of small quartz and ferruginous stones intersecting the clay, and amidst which substances they discover gold, some twenty or thirty feet from the original bottom. This is the greatest distance which has come under my observation of gold being found imbedded in the pipeclay. Now pipeclay, it is generally admitted, is decomposed rock. I am not aware that it has been analysed. Indeed, since the discovery of gold in this country, science, to its shame, has done nothing to elucidate the history and mystery of gold. The enlightened handmaid seems bewildered at the amazing revelations of the physical powers of man. She cannot lead the digger, and seems ashamed to follow him ; therefore the digger is satisfied with the rationale that the pipeclay is the debris from rock of by-gone j ages, but he is not equally conclusive on the j point as to the presence of gold underneath this deposit. The gold already discovered some thirty feet beneath the face of the bed, and found iv company with quartz and other stones, may have found its way thither by dropping into the interstices of the pipeclay, the chasms having been made in the latter by the agency of heat from the sun. Now as modern theorists will have it that tlte gold grows, and the same theorists also maintain that by electrical action the quartz is transmuted into gold, or rather that this agent is made to part with its auriferous treasures by the combined action of electricity and heat, the fact of gold being found so deeply imbedded in the pipeclay, is rather in favor of the latest geological prophets. The quartz lying on the rock in its hardened state, the rock becoming decomposed, the quartz through the agency just named (electricity and heat) having become dispossessed of its gold, the quartz and gold might have been swept into the intestices of the pipeclay by the aid of water. Thus we find gold and quartz imbedded in the clay, but that the gold has been in any one instance, found generated throughout the pipeclay I do not for one moment believe. Yet, with this explanation, we are as far off as ever from the solution of the question of the existence or non-existence of gold underneath the great bed of pipeclay ; and it cannot but be admitted that in the minds of those who think on the gold-fields, the matter is one of the greatest moment. It is deep and absorbing to a degree unparalleled in the history of our gold-fields. A handsome prize should be awarded to the first ardeut band who are hold enough to set the subject at rest. To pass an opinion on the results which would follow in the event of the question being proved in the affirmative, id esf, thnt gold exists in remunerating quantities below the pipeclay, would be almost presumptuous. Whether it would be discovered more equally diffused than it has hitherto been found, whether in lumps which would throw the famous Canadian Gully specimens into the shade, are matters resting on the inquiry. Some of the men of Bendigo engaged :in the trade, declare that go through the pipeclay they will, if it is possible for men to do so ; and the occasional bursts of thunder which assail our ears on the Bendigo, until the hills shake, and the valleys echo and re-echo the peals, attest the determination with which they follow up their intention. Through the pipeclay itself they make their way easily, but occasionally they come upon sandstone as hard as adamant, and the aid of blasting powder is called into action. If Bendigo has been notorious for the vigor of some of its political movements, and the men of this field be sufficiently fortunate in being the first to unravel the knotty point, then will they become famous, and it will be something to be a man of Bendigo. The weather has been very rough this last day or two, and we seem to be having a second edition of winter. If those who live in towns could only see the cold and comfortless abodes of theminiog population in seasons like the present, I think that they would come to this conclusion — that, in the room of being heavily taxed for the privilege (?) of living on the gold-fields, handsome premiums should be given to the miners who thus sacrifice every comfort, and very often their lives, in the pursuit of gold. It is we that sow, and you town's folk that reap.