State Library of NSW
324 V I C T O R I A .
WHITE HILLS OF BENDIGO OCT 1853 GOLD IN PIPECLAY The System of Second bottoming is now attracting generall [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 one we are now working - Sould [should] it turn out that the gold is found in remunerating quantities beneath those pipeclay, Sandstone, & Slate floors, from which it has hitherto been gathered, it will be such a reaction in regard to gold digging as will astonish the world - If we look into geological & mineralogical theories, we shall find nothing to guide us in this matter California & Australia have in their efforts, upset all geological societies and the gold diggers pick & shovel have proved more truths than all the theories laid down by the learned - The question of second layers of golden deposits has long agitated the gold fields, & there has been a great diversity of opinion in regard to it. Gold has been found, to my knowledge, some feet deep in the clay, but all experience goes against the supposition that it is distributed throughout the pipeclay, 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 position to determine. I know of no instance where the investigation has been Carried out on sufficient grounds to form an opinion upon. Whether the gold is found on the pipeclay, or the other bottoms on which we have hitherto sought it, is therefore an enigma, which the Bendigo diggers are determined, if possible,to solve. a number of them are going down in some of the white hills, I do not believe any party has yet fairly bottomed. Many are forty & fifty feet through the pipeclay. Some indeed have come upon an occasional layer of soft sandstone; others have blasted through sandstone rock, while another party finds large veins of small quartz & ferruginious [ferruginous] stones intersecting the clay & 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 observations of gold being found embedded in the pipeclay
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