LIST of Accidents in Inspector Curtain's District-continued.

Was a tipper on the aerial ter-
minus at the reduction works,
and fell from platform into an
empty ore-tin, sustaining a
general shaking and bruising.
Was a stope contractor and fell
through an inclined pass by
mistake.

Was a general hand, and while
walking to his work in inter-
mediate level walked into an
open pass.
Was a fitter.

Was skidding a
a lift shaft, when a lamp rest
was knocked down, inflicting
scalp wounds.

Was working in stope, when his
eye was injured by a flying
spall from his mate's hammer,

REPORT ON THE MATHINNA GOLDFIELD.

SIR,

PART I.

[With Eight Plans.]

Government Geologist's Office,

Launceston, 29th March, 1906.

IN accordance with your instructions, I proceeded to Mathinna on the 7th August last year, and remained on the field till the 17th of that month. Later in the year I visited the district, from 13th October to the 10th November, and again from the 7th to the 22nd December.

No departmental report on this field has been issued since 1892, and the work done since then on some of the large mines necessitated prolonged examination. Even now it has not been possible to finish inspection of the whole field. Consequently, it has been thought advisable to issue this part of my report as a first instalment, in preference to waiting for the completion of the whole.

Mathinna (the native equivalent for its original name of Black Boy) is a neat-looking township of some 800 inhabitants, situate 17 miles north of Fingal, at the base of the spurs descending from the Tower Hill range. Continuous aneroid readings in connection with simultaneous observations at the Victoria Museum, Launceston, gave for Mathinna a height of 1024 feet above sea-level. This figure probably approximates the truth as nearly as is possible with an aneroid, which, as is well known, cannot be relied upon for absolute readings. There is no use in giving aneroid readings a fictitious appearance of accuracy, and hence, for the purposes of this report, the height of the township above sea-level will be taken as 1000 feet.

The road to Mathinna from Fingal runs along the alluvial flat bordering the South Esk, in which gravels, carrying more or less gold at different places, have been deposited. These flats are part of the Malahide estate, extending nearly all the way from Fingal to Mathinna. At Mathinna they are joined by the deltas of the Long Gully and the Black Horse Gully, which are ravines or valleys scooped out on each side of the Gate spur or ridge.

The parallel of Fingal (250 feet below Mathinna) forms the southerly termination of the auriferous slate series, if we except the patches of slate between Bicheno and the

Schoutens. This slate and sandstone series, the carrier of innumerable gold-bearing quartz reefs, reefs, extends northwards without a break through Mathinna to Mt. Victoria, and is bounded on the west by Ben Lomond and on the east by the Tasman Sea. It is the basement rock below the drift of the valleys, and rises to the tops of the lower hill ranges, but towards the summits of the high mountains is overlaid by grits, sandstones, and shales of Permo-Carboniferous and Mesozoic age. Through these has protruded the eruptive diabase, which, in columnar form, builds the peaks of the dominant mountains of this area. The South Esk River takes its rise some distance west of Mathinna, and describing an immense sweep to the south runs a course of 140 miles before it empties its waters into the Tamar, at the Cataract Gorge, Launceston. gravel of the Cataract Gorge carries a little gold, which has been carried there all the way from Mangana or Mathinna. The distance forbids any anticipation that payable quantities are to be found in the Gorge, which, moreover, is of too recent an origin for that, even if the distance had been less.

The

The auriferous series at Mathinna is assumed to be of Ordovician (or Lower Silurian) age, partly from its analogies with Victorian strata, partly because while elsewhere in Tasmania Upper or Middle Silurian beds are fossiliferous, this series has so far yielded no fossil remains. It is strange that no graptolites have yet been discovered. locked over the surfaces of the tips at most of the Mathinna mines, but could find no signs of fossils, nor could I hear that any discovery had ever been made. Some of the difficulty in finding any is perhaps due to fossil impressions occurring mostly on the bedding-surfaces, whereas most of the fragments of slate on the mine heaps are cleavageflakes. There is no real schist in the series, though some of the varieties of slate have improperly been called by that name. The rocks comprise clay slate, graphitic slate, arenac、ous or sandy slate, sandstone, quartzite, argillaceous sandstone, and frequently of a mixed character, partaking of the characters of both slate and sandstone.

It is only occasionally that any difference difference can be detected between the bedding-planes and cleavage-planes. It is seen, however, in the upper tunnel at the Eldorado (now Ophir), where the former dip easterly at about 45o, and the latter westerly at a very steep angle. The latter strike throughout the field between N. 250 and N. 30° W., underlaying to the east of the Golden Gate shaft, to the