AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XXIX, Issue 9061, 9 June 1898, Page 3

AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) Auckland, June 8. Mr A P. Griffiths, general mannger of the Waihi Bilverton Company, this weok presented to the Auckluud Musoum three pieces of fossil punga, which were unearthed in the Silverton mine, in the c iurse of development work at N3. 3 level, inMarch lust A large cavity, or "rugh," about 3ft wide, sft high, and 10ft iong, was me! with, and was found to, be half filled with small, loose fragments of quartz, in which three pieces of punga were found in a vertical position, and practically embedded in the broken quartz. The reef at this point was 320 ft below its reef outcrop, and 260 ft below the brace of the Bhaf t. The reef was 10ft wide, and composed of solid white gold-bearing quartz, without any signs j of fracture or fissure, thus precluding the theory that the vegetable remains may have fallen into the reef through fissures formed subsequently to the lode.

The pieces of punga are 4ft, 2ft, and 18in long, and 3in, l£in, and lin in diameter respectively, and two of them show distinctly remains of the roots, The organic matter has completely disappeared, and has been replaced by iron pyrites, which has retained the exact structure of the original plant, showing the concentric layers and vascular system of this species of fern.. These spocimens, evidently must have fallen from the surface into the fissure, which ultimately became filled with reef matter, and remained there during the whole process of formation of the lode. No silicioua coating is to be soeo, neither do the remains show any silica, as might have .been expected after their immersion in the silieiouß solutions during the deposition of the quartz along the walls of the fissure.

It is not quite dear how the original vegetable matter was replaced by pyrites, especially as the surrouuding quartz is practically free-milling, and contains but a very small percentage of sulphides.

The occurrence of vegetable fossils of au exit ting plant in a quartz reef at such considerable depth below thy surface of the ground is most interesting, and, Mr Griffiths says, tends'to prove the very recent date of, the formation of the quartz reefs of the Hauraki Peninsula. The country encasing the reef was the ordinary "propylite" or decomposed andesite of volcanio origin, with which all miners of our district are well acquainted, and a fragment of the fossils assayed 3dwt 6grs of gold, and loz ladwt 2lgrs of silver per tou, or about 1 of gold to 11 of silver, a proportion of the precious metal which is somewhat different from the rates in which they are found in the Silvertou lode, the bullion there being genera lly in the proportion 1 of 1 of gold to 2-5 of silver.