I have found this simple lesson in practical prospecting of use since.  But the strike or course of a quartz reef is more often indicated by outcrops, either of the silica itself or ironstone “blows,” as the miners call them, but the term is a misnomer, as it argues the easily disproved igneous theory of veins of ejection, meaning thereby that the quartz with its metalliferous contents was thrown out in a molten state from the interior of the earth.  This has in no case occurred, and the theory is an impossible one.  True lodes are veins of injection formed by the infiltration of silicated waters carrying the metals also in solution.  This water filled the fissures caused either by the cooling of the earth’s crust, or formed by sudden upheavals of the igneous rocks.

Sometimes in alluvial ground the trend of the reef will be revealed by a track of quartz fragments, more or less thickly distributed on the surface and through the superincumbent soil.  Follow these along, and at some point, if the lode be continuous, a portion of its solid mass will generally be found to protrude and can then again be prospected.

There is no rule as to the trend or strike of lodes, except that a greater number are found taking a northerly and southerly course than one which is easterly and westerly.  At all events, such is the case in Australia, but it cannot be said that either has the advantage in being more productive.  Some of the richest mines in Australasia have been in lodes running easterly and westerly, while gold, tin, and copper, in great quantity and of high percentage to the ton, have been got in such mines as Mount Morgan, Mount Bischoff, and the Burra, where there are no lodes properly so-called at all.

Mount Morgan is the richest and most productive gold mine in Australasia and amongst the best in the world.

Its yield for 1895 was 128,699 oz. of gold, valued at 528,700 pounds.  Dividends paid in 1895, 300,000 pounds.

This mine was opened in 1886.  Up to May 31, 1897, the total yield was 1,631,981 ozs. of gold, sold at 6,712,187 pounds, from which 4,400,000 pounds have been paid in dividends. (See Mining Journal, for Oct. 9, 1897.)

Mount Morgan shareholders have, in other words, divided over 43 1/2 tons of standard gold.

The Burra Burra Mine, about 100 miles from Adelaide, in a direction a little to the east of north, was found in 1845 by a shepherd named Pickett.  It is singularly situated on bald hills standing 130 feet above the surrounding country.  The ores obtained from this copper mine had been chiefly red oxides, very rich blue and green carbonates, including malachite, and also native copper.  The discovery of this mine, supporting, as it did at one time, a large population, marked a new era in the history of the colony.  The capital invested in it was 12,320 pounds in 5 pound shares, and no subsequent call was ever made upon the shareholders.  The total amount paid