Facts about Quartz Reefs.

Cromwell Argus, Volume I, Issue 11, 19 January 1870, Page 2

Facts about Quartz Reefs.

The present distinguished Government geologist of New South Wales, the Rev. W. B. Clarke, of Sydney—who has done more than any other individual in any part of the world towards applying science to the development of goldfields—thus writes in his “ Reseat dies in the Southern Gold? fields of New South Wales,” (I860) ; —• “In travelling between Taradale and Castletnaine, I was much struck with the fact that the roads are being made with auriferous quartz that is considered too poor to crush except by wheels, and yet the finds by the roadmakers are sometimes great.” (p. 265.) . . . . . “Many veins, or * reefs,’ as some call them, of quartz, which are not visibly auriferous, have been treated with contempt, because no great amount of alluvial gold has been found in their vicinity ; the popular mind not realizing the possibility of a hard crystaline rock being saturated , as it were, with gold , without an;/ appearance of it in a tangible form.” (p. 253.) . , . . “It is remarkable that in quartz yielding from seven to eight ounces to the ton, the gold is often barely perceptible, and in much that produces as high as five ounces it cannot be observed even by the aid of a powerful lens.” (p. 254.) . . . . “It is, moreover, a very well known fact that a heap of detritus, from which all the gold has apparently been taken out, will yet supply gold after it has been exposed some time to atmospheric action ; proving by examples, which many persons at the goldfields could furnish, that the separation of gold from the matrix still goes on at the present day.” (p. 278.) . . . . “ There is no positive certainty that any given reef will be found equally rich throughout, or even auriferous all through.” (p. 259.) . . . “ Though an experiment may succeed so far as a small individual mass of quartz is concerned, within a short distance of it the quartz may be found barren.” (p. 260.) . . . . “ There is need of this warning, again given, that neither all reefs, nor all parts of any reef, are equally rich ; and where some make their fortunes, many others are beggared 1” (p. 265.) Which facts or considerations are to be held as proving that all gold-diggings, though more especially quartz-reefing, are a grand lottery in which, while there are a few j prizes, there are more blanks.