Notes on the Bingera Diamond-field, with Notes on the Mudgee Diamond-field

Abstract

T he first announcement of the occurrence of the diamond in Australia was made by the Rev. W. B. Clarke, F.G.S., in 1860. Specicimens were found, in 1852, at Calula Creek, and, in 1859, near Sutton's Bar, in the Macquarie river, at Burrendong, and at Pyramul Creek. In 1867 diamonds were discovered by gold-diggers in the Mudgee district on the Cudgegong river, which flows into the Macquarie. In 1869 they were worked pretty extensively at this spot; and in 1870 Mr. Norman Taylor and Dr. Thomson described the Mudgee diamond-field in a paper read before the Royal Society of New South Wales. From this it appears that the diamond-bearing spots lie along the river in outliers of an old river-drift, at varying distances from the river and at an elevation of 40 feet or more above it. The outliers are capped by deposits of hard and compact, sometimes columnar basalt, regarded by Mr. Taylor as of older Pliocene age. These outliers, with their basaltic capping, may be traced for about seventeen miles up the river; in some of them the diamantiferous drift is still 70 feet in thickness. The outliers which have been worked are enumerated by Messrs. Taylor and Thomson as follows:—Jordan's Hill, 40 acres; Two Mile Flat, 70 acres; Rocky Ridge, 40 acres; Horse-shoe Bend, 20 acres; and Hassall's Hill, 340 acres: in all, 510 acres. The drift has invariably been met with in these localities on tunnelling under or sinking through the basalt. In one patch a peculiar