in thickness at different points on the surface-level, but is
reported as increasing to twenty inches thick at the bottom of the
shaft, already carried down to a depth of forty feet. This very
considerable variation in thickness will be found to be owing to the
folds or plications of the vein, to which we shall hereafter make more
particular allusion.

The minerals associated with the quartz in this vein, especially the
cuprite and mispickel, are found most abundantly upon the foot-wall
side, or underside of the quartz itself. The smaller accompanying vein
before alluded to appears to be but a repetition of the larger one in
all its essential characteristics, and is believed by the scientific
examiners to be fully as well charged with gold. That this is likely to
come up to a very remarkable standard of productiveness, perhaps more so
than any known vein in the world, is to be inferred from the official
statement in the "Royal Gazette" of Wednesday, January 20, 1864,
published by authority, at the Chief Gold-Commissioner's office in
Halifax, in which the average yield of the Montague vein for the month
of October, 1863, is given as 3 oz. 3 dwt. 4 gr., for November as 3 oz.
10 dwt. 13 gr., and for December as 5 oz. 9 dwt. 8 gr., to the ton of
quartz crushed during those months respectively. Nor is the quartz of
this vein the only trustworthy source of yield. The underlying slate is
filled with bunches of mispickel, not distributed in a sheet, or in any
particular order, so far as yet observed, but developed throughout the
slate, and varying in size from that of small nuts to many pounds in
weight, masses of over fifty pounds having been frequently taken out.
This peculiar mineral has always proved highly auriferous in this
locality, and a careful search will rarely fail to detect "sights" of
the precious metal imbedded in its folds, or lying hidden between its
crystalline plates.

Nor is the surrounding mass of slate in which this vein is inclosed
without abundant evidences of a highly auriferous character. Scales of
gold are everywhere to be seen between its laminae, and, when removed and
subjected to the processes of "dressing," there can be little doubt of
its also yielding a very handsome return. In fact, the entire mass of
material which is known to be auriferous is not less than twelve to
fifteen inches at the surface, and will doubtless be found, as all
experience and analogy in the district have hitherto shown