That is not poor-man's mining.
Quartz-mining and milling require capital, and staying-power, and patience.

Big companies were formed, and for several decades, now, the lodes have been successfully worked, and have yielded great wealth.
Since the gold discovery in 1853 the Ballarat mines--taking the three kinds of mining together--have contributed to the world's pocket something over three hundred millions of dollars, which is to say that this nearly invisible little spot on the earth's surface has yielded about one-fourth as much gold in forty-four years as all California has yielded in forty-seven.

The Californian aggregate, from 1848 to 1895, inclusive, as reported by the Statistician of the United States Mint, is $1,265,215,217.
A citizen told me a curious thing about those mines.

With all my experience of mining I had never heard of anything of the sort before.
The main gold reef runs about north and south--of course for that is the custom of a rich gold reef.

At Ballarat its course is between walls of slate.