A VISIT TO THE NORTHERN GOLD FIELDS.
BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.
No. 14.
MOUNT Mitchell, rising on the south-east margin of the platform that forms the base of the Ben
Lomond range, is one of those remarkable domite elevations which are to be so frequently observed
in the midst of the granitic formations exhibited on the high lands of New South Wales. This
mountain, part of a chain trending to the north-east, which skirts the rim of the plateau,
seems to have formed the culminating point of the granitic outburst in the district. It rises from
a base of porphyrtic red granite, which presents all the appearance of a tilted stratification;
huge masses of rock being exhibited on the slopes rising from ten to fifty feet above the surface,
and stretching in lines to the N.N.E. of the width of the usual schistose strata, and displaying a
parallelism so exact as to favour the idea that they are metamorphosed rocks. If so, gold might
be looked for in the vicinity with every prospect of success. This formation is carried across the
channel of the river Sarah, and eventually dips under the opposite range. The granitic mass may
have been moulded in the spaces occupied by displaced strata of the schistose rocks, but of
these there are no remaining traces. It may also be a transmuted grit, but if so the metamorphose is
so complete as to leave no indication of its original character.
Deceived by the symmetrical proportions of the mountain, it is not until you commence the ascent
that you become impressed with a sense of its vast bulk. As you make your way upwards you discover
that the stratified character disappears, and that the granite seems to have flowed in vast sheets
from the centre, and is sharply marked by the ordinary joints and fissures caused by the
contraction of the cooling rock.
As a heavy rain was falling at the time and the crest was enveloped in a dense cloud, I did not
reach the summit; but on a subsequent occasion I observed that it presented the appearance of a
crown composed of weathered sandstone, or soft trap, towering above the patches of forest that
mantled the sides of the mountain. Having heard a general report that the slopes were auriferous,
a person with me tried many places, but could no where obtain a single spec of gold.
The river Sarah, here forsaking the high flats, breaks through the range when, winding round the
base of Mount Mitchell, it flows,through a rocky channel, presenting some of the wildest and
grandest scenery in its descent that can be found amidst these rugged mountains. About three miles
down stream the granites pass into an altered coarse sandstone in horizontal strata; here the
river gurgles along a subterranean channel in which there are many circular shafts or air-holes,
at the bottom of which its black waters may be seen swiftly gliding towards the falls, distant a
few hundred yards, where, rushing from its caverns, it foams and flashes as it madly leaps with a
sullen roar from crag to crag, until falling into the deep abyss it whirls and boils and eddies,
drenching the overhanging cliffs with spray and curling mists. Stupendous piles of granite -- the
skeletons of mountains, tower upwards on either hand, in the chinks and fissures of which a sickly
growth of shrubs struggle for life, twining their naked roots round sterile rocks, and trying to
relieve the dreary aspect of the crumbling stones.
It is impossible to proceed further down the river by this route, as the descent becomes precipitous;
rock-crowned capes and promontories from the table land hang over the course of the torrent, and
fling their enormous fragments into its channel, as if to obstruct its progress to the broad
vallies through which it flows for some eight or ten miles to the eastward, gathering strength from
a thousand springs before it enters the wilderness of mountains and the gloomy gulfs through which
it must continue its descent to the lower country.
In the upper portion of the Sarah there appears to be a little fine gold, but the channel abounds
with stream tin and precious stones, particularly sapphires; so beautiful and so varied are the
pebbles forming the detritus that a collector, taking up a shovel full from the bed of the stream,
would hardly know which to reject.
Returning to the station, in company with a Swede en route for the Snowy, who wished to go by way of
Oban, we directed our course to the eastward round the Mount Mitchell Range, our way lay across
the granitic district, described in a previous letter, over ranges, marshes, and piles of granite,
becoming more intricate as we advanced, until we entered a thick scrub, stretching to the base of
the range that lay between us and the valley. As a passing gleam of sunshine burst through the
canopy of mist, we could distinguish the naked crest of the mountain known as the Nightcap
toppling over our track. It was but for a moment, as the dense clouds again gathered round the
peaks, and the deep gorges and lower country were obscured by a sea of mist. At last the day wore
away, and the night closed upon us in a deep glen; the scrub was behind, and in our front rose
the interminable mass of cold grey granite forming the range, stretching upwards until it became
indistinct in misty clouds and vapours; here drenched with drizzling rain we made a virtue of
necessity, and resolved to pass the hours of darkness, making a tent of a blanket (than which
nothing is more suitable in heavy weather). We stripped a bundle of the dry outer bark from the
lee side of the neighbouring mahogany trees, for the purpose of making a couch on the wet ground
and lighting a fire; the latter is no easy matter in the heart of a dripping scrub, the stillness
of the glen was only broken by the paltering of the rain, or the fitful night wind sweeping
through the forest; not a living thing appeared to be native to these dreary wilds,notwithstanding
we had a comfortable time of it. Our fire, once under way, blazed cheerfully, and my companion
shortened the hours by recounting his adventures amidst the snows of Lapland and contrasting his
past miseries with the the comforts of our present situation, something in the manner of Ben Bunt
and Billy Bowling. My horse took up his quarters alongside of the fire, and appeared to forget the
cravings of his appetite in his enjoyment of its warmth. Daylight broke without any change for the
better in the weather, when we clambered to the summit of the granite range in the hopes of
discovering our whereabouts; but there we were enveloped in driving mists, and could distinguish
nothing but the rocks upon which we stood in the centre of desolation.
Returning to the glen, which at our encampment sloped both way, we followed its descent to the
southward, as being most likely to lead us to the river, and after about two hours of toiling and
stumbling over loose fragments of rock, and through a horrible mass of tangled underbrush, we
reached the valley, and were again on the banks of the Sarah -- just at the right place.
The rain now ceased, and the sun burst through the canopy of mists which slowly rolled away from
the mountain tops. We were in a lovely basin through which the stream flowed to the eastward;
our track lay over undulating slopes, richly grassed, and expanding as we advanced for four
miles, when we arrived under Nowlan's Crown. Here the river again entered a rocky gorge, and
fields of granite alternated with belts of unstratified sandstone. Emerging, from the gorge the
river enters extensive plains; at this spot the granite becomes coarser, similar to that on the
Timbarra, and the wreck of a narrow belt of calcareous sandstone is exhibited on the surface
somewhat altered. Here gold in payable quantities was obtained from a bar in the river, and a shaft
twelve feet in diameter was sunk on the slopes, but never bottomed, as water broke in at a depth of
twenty-five feet and drove the diggers out. Three miles lower down a cluster of shafts have been
sunk and abandoned for the same reason. Fine gold can be procured here from any part of the surface
drift in the river in such quantities as would warrant the attention of prospectors; it exists in
every creek and gulley from the range, but the detritus is either very deep or there is none in the
steep descents of the rocky channels. A little further down we reached the residence of the only
inhabitant of this beautiful valley at Hall's cattle station. Here we learned that the trackless
route we had taken was not traversed once in seven years, and that the few strangers who ever had
attempted it were invariably lost for three or four days. Some time since the remains of a digger
was found in those mountains with his swag hanging in the fork of a tree. One of the tributaries of
the river falling in about two miles below the station is worthy of especial notice -- it is known as
Main Camp Creek, rises in the range to the northward, and was worked near its source with success
by some of the early diggers, who abandoned it for one of the rushes to the southward. The place
still bears traces of their labours.
The very intelligent person in charge of the station has been in the vicinity for fourteen years, and
he says that within that period the physical changes that have taken place in and about the valley
are incredible. When he first became acquainted with the district, the river, now flowing through a
deep wide channel, was but a chain of waterholes, connected by marshes through the whole extent of
the plains. Main Camp Creek, now a deep rapid stream, was a narrow bog, extending to the base of
the recess in the range, where it takes its rise, and nearly all the minor streams have altered
their courses, or come into existence, within his knowledge. Open plains have also become covered
with a dense scrub.
All these results have been caused by the introduction of cattle; in their search for water during
a dry season, they have trampled down the marshes, thus forming continuous water-courses, and have
probably carried seeds from the scrubs in their hoofs and hides, the growth of which has been
facilitated by the improved drainage. This would lead to the inference, that the degradation of
elevated regions is more rapid than is generally supposed. In the case of the Andes there is,
probably, an upheaval to correspond with their degradation, but in Australia, if such phenomena
exists, it is much more gradual in its action.
When this station was formed the blacks were both numerous and dangerous. They have, however,
disappeared. A party of four men, who were employed to put up the first hut, and enclose the first
paddock, having neglected to bring their arms into the field, were all killed just as their work
was completed. The murderers could give no reason for the slaughter except that the men ran about
the paddock like kangaroos, and that they could not resist the temptation of a hunt. This station,
walled in by mountains, extends to the great gulf, beyond which little is known. Four miles below
the house the schistose formations exhibit themselves, reposing upon the granites, of the lower hills.
I have made an attempt to describe this portion of the descents from the plateau of New England,
because, although almost unknown, it is supposed by many to be an auriferous district which has
been overlooked. That there is some gold in every watercourse falling from the range is certain,
but whether there is sufficient to pay for the labour of collection, remains for the miner to prove.
We now cross the river, and directing our course to the south-west, five miles over swelling ridges
clothed with a bright green sward, and dotted with forest trees, brings you to Paddy's Creek, at a
spot directly south of Nowlan's Crown, where the channel of the stream is intersected by the broad
band of altered calcareous sandstone previously noticed. Here a large quantity of gold has been
obtained, and some parties are still at work with varied success; they have followed the precious
metal into the hills on the west bank; but as it recedes from the watercourse, it becomes more
widely diffused, and the depth of the stripping renders further search unprofitable. As the stream
descends to the flats, it becomes more and more impoverished, until the colour only can be obtained.
Everywhere in this district gold has only been discovered in any quantity where the sandstones have
been found in contact with, or resting upon, the granites. These lower grits without granite, or
granite where I no members of the sedimentary formations are present, appear to be equally sterile;
it therefore seems that the presence of both are necessary to the production of gold in the form
in which it is found.
Five miles still further in the same direction, the granites again exhibit themselves in long lines,
bursting through the green sward on the summits of the ridges like the white crest of a wave about
to break. Here you descend upon the basin of the Ann, at a point in its course due south of Mount
Mitchell. You are now on the outskirts of the Oban diggings, where extensive excavations attest the
past labours of the miner and the former wealth of the stream.
This small river rising, as formerly stated, from the lagoons at the base of Ben Lomond, and flowing
parallel to the Sarah, effects a junction with that stream above the gulfs. Holding its upper course
for some miles through the trappean and ironstone flats on the summit of tlie main range, it is not
until it enters the granites and commences the descent to the eastward that it becomes auriferous;
and only payable when it reaches a series of basins, commencing at a line drawn from north to south,
intersecting Mount Mitchell, and terminating at a parallel line intersecting Nowlan's Crown. The
river maintains its gold bearing character below the latter point to the junction, but it has never
been worked lower down. The country here is much more open than about the Sarah, and the declivity
is gradual; the summits of the ridges are crested with unstratified sandstones, more or less altered,
and conglomerates intermixed with granite, denuded masses of wliich rise in nests through the wreck
of sandstone. This latter formation abounds near the margin of the table land and on the lower
slopes, giving place to granite, which also disappears as you approach the trappean flats and
marshes on the summit of the range.
The base and points of the ridges falling into the basins of the Ann are mostly what miners
recognise as made ground formed of the debris from the heights, and consisting of fragments of
calcareous sandstone, granite, greenstones, varieties of porphyry as disintegrated conglomerates,
pebbles of quartz of all colours, sulphurets, metals, and clay. This heterogeneous mass derived
from the base of the sedimantory rocks, and the surface of the granites, includes more or less
gold, which differs in its character at the mouth of every little gulley; sometimes it is fine,
at others coarse and nuggetty.
The lower section of the upper basin, where the sandstones and granites are found in contact with
each other, proved to be exceedingly rich, until the lead was lost in a swamp near its centre on the
north bank; and the number of abandoned and ruined huts, deep races, and extensive earthworks,
are a silent evidence of the recent existence of an industrious and numerous population that has
disappeared. The succeeding basin, more extensive, terminates at a ledge of granite over which the
stream precipitates itself with a fall of fifty feet. Above these falls was the richest portion of
the river. Here an American party commenced a series of very extensive operations, cutting a race
half a mile long, twelve feet wide, and nine feet deep, and blasting a channel through a rocky ridge
so as to carry the stream clear of the falls. They were never destined to complete their grand
design, as they had only succeeded in getting down one small paddock, from which they obtained sixty
ounces of gold at a depth of thirty feet, all striping; they now had some definite idea of the value
of the ground, and also learned that their channel round the falls was not yet deep enough to
drain the bottom of the basin. In the meantime the winds blew, and the rain poured, and the floods
came and continued month after month, until their patience and their funds became exhausted
together. In some places such a company would never die -- individuals might drop off and be replaced
by others, but the company would still live and complete the undertaking. One party of three succeeded
in obtaining twenty-five pounds weight of gold in three weeks near the head of the basin, with which
they decamped as usual. I heard of many other instances of success, but they were all confined to
the first season after the diggings were opened. The population was scattered during the long
continuance of the floods, and from that period Oban, although never worked, and holding out so
rich a promise, may be said to have been abandoned. There are at present about twenty diggers
scattered over the gold-field fossicking about the old works, and there is a first-class
public house still in the receipt of custom, the owner of which is strong in his faith that the
long night that has lowered over his district will be succeeded by a bright morrow.