work and likely to be for years to come.

Each of these immense metalliferous deposits was found outcropping on
the summit of a hill of comparatively low altitude. There are no true
walls nor can the ore be traced away from the hill in lode form. These
occurrences are generally held to be due to hydrothermal or geyser
action.

Then again lodes are often very erratic in their course. Slides and
faults throw them far from their true line, and sometimes the lode is
represented by a number of lenticular (double-pointed in section) masses
of quartz of greater or less length, either continuing point to point or
overlapping, "splicing," as the miners call it. Such formations are very
common in West Australia. All this has to be considered and taken into
account when tracing the run of stone.

This tyro also must carefully remember that in rough country where the
lode strikes across hills and valleys, the line of the cap or outcrop
will apparently be very sinuous owing to the rises and depressions of
the surface. Many people even now do not understand that true lodes or
reefs are portions of rock or material differing from the surrounding
and enclosing strata, and continuing down to unknown depths at varying
angles. Therefore, if you have a north and south lode outcropping on
a hill and crossing an east and west valley, the said lode, underlying
east, when you have traced its outcrop to the lowest point in the
valley, between the two hills, will be found to be a greater or less
distance, according to the angle of its dip or underlie, to the east of
the outcrop on the hill where it was first seen. If it be followed up
the next hill it will come again to the west, the amount of apparent
deviation being regulated by the height of the hills and depth of the
valley.

A simple demonstration will make this plain. Take a piece of half-inch
pine board, 2 ft. long and 9 in. wide, and imagine this to be a lode;
now cut a half circle out of it from the upper edge with a fret saw and
lean the board say at an angle of 45 degrees to the left, look along the
top edge, which you are to consider as the outcrop on the high ground,
the bottom of the cut being the outcrop in the valley, and it will be
seen that the lowest portion of the cut is some inches to the right; so
it is with the lode, and in rough country very nice judgment is required
to trace the true course.

For indications, never pass an ironstone "blow" without examination.
Rem