Volume 01: Production and resources of the northern and western districts of New South Wales, 1854 [ca. 1850-1857] - Page 582
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EFFECT OF THE DELUGE UPON ALLUVIAL DEPOSITS OF GOLD
"This earth has at several distinct periods of its history, been the theatre of terrific catastrophes affecting the superficial arrangements of mountains and valleys, and consequently of land and water. The upheaving of stratified rocks, the intrusion of igneous or volcanic masses, and other phenomena, distinctly traced by geology, sufficiently attest the fact. Upon strata, other
tilted into an almost perpendicular direction, we frequently find horizontal beds containing marine and fresh water shells, and bearing such appearance as might be expected in earthy deposits from water in periods of greater or less tranquility. These changes or revolutions as they are called by Geologists, account for the formation of Mountains and valleys, and the destribution [distribution] of land and water."
Practical experience has shown that the deposits of gold are but limited on the Great Cordillera of Australia, and that but little gold has been found in the primary mountains although geologists supposed that there the grand depository would be found to exist, and the theory is that during the great deluge which succeeded the conflagration that the gold was washed out of its original and hidden bed, and during this period, all the substances from the most dense to the lightest, arranged themselves in Vast parallel layers. That the monster nuggets were swept out on the retiring of the waters of the Ocean from the basis and sides of the mountains and carried before the immense body of waters into lower levels, and into undulating ranges, and now either rest there, or upon the bed rock - covered up with the surface earth at no greater depth in what we call gullies and flats, & that the light gold was washed into veins or strata, Tables, Circular Patches or Basins, Monster Pockets, [?] flats & into shallow basins now occasionally flooded. The Amount of the precious metal yet discovered is most insignificant compared with the Vast beds of gold which now exist and lay embedded in the interior of Australia.
ANTICIPATED DISCOVERIES OF GOLD TO THE WESTWARD OF THE GREAT CORDILLERA AND IN THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN DESERT.
I anticipate that a discovery of gold will be made in the country immediately to the westward of Port Curtis, in the Cluster of Mountains discovered by Sir Thomas MItchell in South latitude 25 16' 10" & 147' 15" [?] east longitude. In that Clusters of mountains which gave birth to so many rivers flowing in every direction of the compass, a spur from which in all probability forms a barrier between the great Australian Desert and the Gulf of Carpentaria - To the westward of the Counties of Lennox and fitzroy, a spur from the great Northern Cordillera strikes out to the west and forms the head lands of an inland basin, which is similar to that inland basin formed in the Colony of Victoria - In this basin we may look