4392 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION C. 
A few chains further along the beach, still going in the 
direction of Tararu, veins of pyritous quartz and large segregated 
masses of calcite are plentiful. In the road cutting under Tararu 
Cemetery the tufaceous sandstones dip 8.S.E. at an angle of 
40 deg., and soon after passing Tararu Creek the dip changes to 
the north-west, the strata thus forming a syncline, by means of 
which the whole of the sandstones and breccias just described are 
again repeated before the boundary of the goldfield proper is 
reached. 
A few yards past Magazine Point the coarse volcanic breccias 
and associated rocks rest upon the upper member of the auriferous 
series, which is well exposed at Kurunui Creek. There does not 
appear to be any unconformity or stratigraphical break between 
the two formations, but the line of junction is very plain, the 
character of the sediments of each being very distinct. 
The auriferous series consists of grey and yellowish-grey and 
sometimes ferruginous sandstones, which alternate with wide 
belts of hard greyish-blue, coarser-grained sandstone, often of a 
felspathic nature. The former are of moderate hardness, are 
generally highly decomposed, and at the surface look as if at one 
time they had been permeated in every direction by thermal 
waters. The gold-bearing veins are almost exclusively confined 
to the softer decomposed sandstones. In places the harder sand- 
stones pass imperceptibly into angular breccias, which weather on 
the surface into bright-coloured clays, being very subject to 
decomposition by atmospheric agencies. 
From Kurunui Creek to the Waiotahi the strata dip to the 
north-west at angles varying from 40 deg. to 50 deg., but after 
passing the latter place the dip rapidly steepens, and soon after 
passing the Saxon shaft becomes vertical, and then changes to 
south-east, the core of the anticline passing through a point 
between the Saxon mine and Waiokaraka Gully. From the 
latter place to Hape Oreek the whole of the auriferous rocks are 
repeated. The low flat spur lying between the Karaka and 
Waiokaraka is composed of a series of flat-lying bedded clays, 
sands, silts, and coarse cemented gravels, which from their situation 
must have been formed by the former during Pleistocene times. 
At Hape Creek the gold-bearing strata disappear below the coarse 
volcanic breccias and tufts which follow in the order of their 
superposition. 
The following sketch illustrates the arrangement of the gold- 
bearing strata and the position of some of the principal mines 
along this line of section :— 
