Quartz reef

“ By a late paper from Bendigo, the richness of the quartz there found is extraordinary; the quartz reef on the Loliban is worthy of special notice, situated on the Kangaroo Creek, four miles above Malmesbury. There are five hundred miners employed there now, wood and water plentiful enough, and excellent food for horses. At the present moment there is considerable ignorance respecting quartz reefs; an association, therefore, to collect all the useful information for its true development and proper working has been formed, which will confer great benefit on all the quartz localities. ”

“ Quantities of richly auriferous quartz were found scattered on the hillside forming the surface. The first discovery was made on it in 1872, and prospecting was carried on for many years. A number of reef-tracks were located in the workings, in which boulders and small bunches of good stone were frequently found, but no extent of solid reef was ever located. In 1881 it was thought a strong reef had been picked up and a battery was erected, but when development was pushed on the reef soon cut out, and after struggling along for some few more years the claim was eventually abandoned in 1893. ”

“ Towards the lower end of the quartz covered, and where the stone was richest in gold, a tunnel has been driven west into the hill, in the hope that by this means solid ground might be entered, and the lode from which the richer quartz has been derived thus discovered. At a distance of 150 ft. from where started the tunnel driven west into the hill failed to reach solid rock, and no reef was discovered; yet, more remarkable, scarcely a fragment of quartz was found more than 3 ft. below the surface in the tunnel workings. ”

“ DAVE REGAN, Jim Bently, and Andy Page were sinking a shaft at Stony Creek in search of a rich gold quartz reef which was supposed to exist in the vicinity. There is always a rich reef supposed to exist in the vicinity; the only questions are whether it is ten feet or hundreds beneath the surface, and in which direction. They had struck some pretty solid rock, also water which kept them baling. They used the old-fashioned blasting-powder and time-fuse. They’d make a sausage or cartridge of blasting-powder in a skin of strong calico or canvas, the mouth sewn and bound round the end of the fuse ”

“ In places the vein material itself, occasionally carrying good values, has been found, but has not been continuous for any great distance. Within the area under consideration some good alluvial gold has been found near the head of Malone Creek, just below the stratum of quartzitic greywacke which overlies the reef-system. Careful search along the base of this stratum may therefore reveal the presence of auriferous quartz. ”

“ In some claims held by the Boatman’s Exploration Syndicate on the east of Kirwan’s Reward a certain amount of prospecting in the nature of shaft-sinking was done on a loose formation of slate containing small fragments of quartz, and another company started a tunnel from near the headwaters of Larry’s Creek, which was driven easterly for about 530 ft. through the Colonial Claim, with the idea of picking up at depth a reef found outcropping in that direction. ”

“ This was in an occurrence in Gold Creek, a small tributary entering the Taipo River well up towards its source. In the bed of the creek, and about seventy-five paces from its mouth, the survey party discovered a bedded reef formation consisting of narrow alternating bands of greywacke and quartz striking north 60° east and dipping at a high angle to the eastward. The formation was exposed for about 3ft. from the foot-wall, but the hanging-wall portion was covered with heavy creek debris, so that the full width-was not ascertained. ”

“ These companies spent a lot of money in driving a low-level adit about 150 ft. below the deepest of the old workings, with a view to striking the leader-bearing country on that horizon. This adit was carried in for 1,253 ft. At 80 ft. back from the face a reef-track was driven on for 47 ft. north and 25 ft. south. In the north drive boulders of quartz were met with, but they continued only negligible values. In the south drive only the merest track was followed. Later, a rise was put up from the north drive for over 90 ft., but nowhere was any sign of payable reef noted. ”

“ The Jubilee Gold-mining Company was formed to work this, and it erected a ten-head battery of very primitive construction, and put a number of test crushings through from the outcrops, with results that seemed to show payable values in the quartz. A commencement was then made to open the reef up systematically. Only very incomplete plans of the workings are available, but they serve to show that an adit cross-cut was first run in to cut the reef at 125 ft. ”

“ The stone is too narrow and the rock-walls too hard to admit of profitable working, and there is small likelihood of the reef widening at depth, it being a feature of the bedded veins of the Inangahua district that they rarely alter much in width as they are followed down. ”

“ The gold contents in the shoot may also be of much the same tenor as those recovered from above No. 7 level during the past two years or more that the reef was worked—namely, from 9 dwt. to 10 dwt. per ton. The point is, however, as to whether, in view of the fact that the Murray Creek Mines could not mine and treat the stone from above No. 7 level at a profit, it is possible to deal any more successfully with quartz from below that level. ”

“ A crosscut was put in there to the westward some years ago, and was the only development in the mine in which timber was not needed, a fact that served to show that the working was in settled country beyond the fault, and might well, if continued, have encountered the reef in its original position. Now that water has been allowed to accumulate in the old workings, underground search for the lode is no longer possible, and any prospecting done must be from the surface. ”

“ Hard by, in a chasm between two boulders, lay all the rejected casings from which the gold-bearing quartz had been extracted by exposure to heat prior to the crushing, proving beyond a doubt that these mines, though not immediately on a gold reef, formed the capital of a gold-producing people who had chosen this hill fortress with its granite boulders for their capital owing to its peculiar strategic advantages. Gold reefs and old workings have been lately discovered about twelve miles from Zimbabwe, and it was from these that their auriferous quartz was doubtless obtained. ”

“ Thus, while Nos. 1 and 2 levels of the Empire City Claim were driven in solid ore for 1,100 ft. and 1,350 ft. respectively, No. 3 was driven 750 ft. in a formation consisting merely of stringers and veinlets of quartz, while in the Federation lease on the other end of the line a tunnel driven under solid quartz only cut a similar zone of silicified country. Towards the centre line of the property the solid reef may, however, carry to considerably greater depth, and has indeed been proved to live down to No. 2 adit of the Golden Bar, 160 ft. lower than No. ”

“ In March, 1904, the reef was visited by P. G. Morgan, who states [7] that a lode 2 ft. wide, which appeared to be a bedded vein enclosed in argillite and greywacke, was showing in the west side of the slip, striking about 322° and dipping to the south-west at 75°. A sample taken by him from the spot yielded on assay only 5 dwt. 16 gr. gold and 1 dwt. 21 gr. silver per ton.
Some time in the early “eighties” a parcel of 10 tons of ore from this lode appears to have been shipped away for treatment, but no records are available as to the results. ”

“ It proved to be the normal vein in grey granite, running south-north and gradually falling towards the valley-plain. Here a small white outlier disappears below the surface, rising again in filets upon the further side. The dip is easterly: in this direction a huge strew of ore-mass and rubbish covers the slope which serves as base to the perpendicular reef. The Negro quartz, which must have formed half the thickness, had been carried bodily away. If anything be left for the moderns it is hidden underground: the stone, blasted in the little outlier, looked barren. ”

“ Croesus Knob Reefs.—Auriferous quartz was first found in this locality, near the head-waters of Ten-mile Creek, by Harry Neilson in 1897. This prospector traced shoad stone up the bed of the creek mentioned, and located what was subsequently known as the Croesus Reef on the crest of the mountain-range. ”

“ In view of the specimen gold got in such quantity in Moonlight Creek and its upper tributaties, it would appear that somewhere in the area drained by the creek rich gold-bearing reef must once have existed, and probably still exists and will some day reward the efforts of the prospector; but the country is rugged, heavily timbered, and very difficult to get about in, and few men are now willing to face the extreme hardship the investigation of such places entails. ”

“ The results of three samples taken by Bell for assay were as follows:—
For several years following 1905 a little desultory prospecting was apparently done on this find, and on certain other reefs in the vicinity, but in 1908 a start was made to put an adit in on it at a distance below the outcrop sufficient to give about 250 ft. of backs. For 55 ft. the reef was reported by Inspector of Mines A. Whitley to avarage 15 in. in width, and show good dish prospects as well as colours of gold. ”

“ No solid stone was met with, and work was then suspended. The company asked for the assistance of a pound-for-pound subsidy to enable the crosscut to be advanced a further 500 ft., but in view of the nature of the development elsewhere in the mine, and the fact that no reef is known to outcrop to the east, the application was not entertained. In 1912 the company ceased operations, but during its working-period it crushed 380 tons of quartz, for an even smaller average return than the Phoenix Syndicate had secured, the yield only being 241 oz. 2 dwt. gold, valued at £883 13s. ”

“ A. H. V. Morgan, Director of the Waihi School of Mines, visited the locality and advised that another adit should be driven on this reef 100 ft. higher than the one first driven, and that the two adits should be connected by rising or winzing. The second adit referred to was subsequently driven for 130 ft., the ore met with in the first 50 ft. being similar in character to that of the lower level, but at that distance from the portal the drive passed into disturbed country and the reef was lost. The assay results of eleven samples taken at regular intervals from 195 ft. to 250 ft. ”