Volume 01: Production and resources of the northern and western districts of New South Wales, 1854 [ca. 1850-1857] - Page 567
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15
ALLUVIAL DEPOSITS OF GOLD
The alluvial deposits of gold found in the banks and beds of rivers in Australia have been washed out of the original bed, and are now found in the crevices of rocks forming the beds of these rivers, or embedded in the clay or gravel. These are frequently found in the banks or bed of the former course of a river. This gold is found to be nuggety which accounts for its being washed from a different locality from that in which we find it, whilst we find the gold in the sandy ridges in the same locality to be of a different description, being fine as gunpowder, seldom any of this gold is found to be a large size as pin heads. Observant gold diggers sometimes find the wash and lay of the gold deposits to be upon the side of a river or creek, while a projecting ledge of rock [?] has frequently the effect of depositing the gold to the opposite bank of a river.
DEPOSITS OF GOLD UNITED WITH QUARTZ.
The Theory is that in some positions during the conflagration the liquid quartz ran over the mountain sides and in this state mixed with the gold and thus to account for the presence of gold in quartz for the one has no affinity for the other, and it is only from their being in contiguity when both were in a state of fusion that adherence took place.
HANGING ROCK GOLD FIELD LIVERPOOL DISTRICT
These diggings are situated in the valley of the mountain range which divides the source of the
Bernard river from that of the Peel. This range
forms part of the great Cordillera which stretches from Cape Howe to the most northern parts of the Colony of New South Wales.
To the perpendicular Craggy side of the mountain peak the name of "Hanging rock" is given. The gold found at this field is nuggety. The largest nuggets averaging from twelve to twenty ounces. The diggings are shallow & the claims soon run out. On a ridge at this gold field
the bed rock lies at a depth of thirty feet. One Shaft was sunk to the depth of thirty five feet without reaching the rock, and at this depth bones of animals were found.
DRY DIGGINGS BINGERA GOLD FIELD GWYDER [GWYDIR] DISTRICT.
This gold field is situated in the low country to the westward of the slopes of the highlands of New England - The characteristic of this field is that the gold deposits are found near the surface. The gold of the large nuggets is nearly pure, weighing from six to sixteen ounces and are generally found water worn, The greater proportion of the gold got from this field is nuggety.
The diggers complain of a great scarcity of water during certain seasons.
The deposits of gold found at Bingera gold field are from higher levels.
In this field out of a measured piece of ground sixty feet long, seven feet wide & two feet deep in all eight hundred & forty cubic feet. In twenty seven days three men took from this plot only two feet deep gold worth eight hundred pounds sterling. The washing stuff of this gold field is composed of decomposed quartz, & rotten trap or Serpentine rock, colours green, yellow, and Russian blue, attended with small quartz veins; very soft, & no stones except the iron stones, or boulders as they are called. The bed rock is serpentine.