Fifteenth Annual Report. 539 
the temperature of winter and summer, and day and night, which is so 
characteristic of this district, is all in favour of successful cultivation if irri- 
gation were afforded; and the destructive effects of the high winds might 
easily be mitigated by the growth of plantations, as trees flourish vigorously 
wherever there is even a small trickle of moisture. The claim of the dis- 
| trict for expenditure on water-supply therefore appears to me to be better 
founded than in many other districts, where it would have no ultimate 
advantage beyond the extraction of gold. . 
Other parts of the Otago District were visited during January and 
February with special objects, and the remainder of the season was spent 
in the Taupo and Rotorua Districts on business relating to ‘the general 
examination of the distriet and particularly to the utilization of the thermal 
springs. 
Mr. Cox was engaged during the months of October, November 
and December on an examination of the district lying between Col- 
lingwood and Big River, along the coast-line, and bounded to the eastward 
by the Aorere River. He reports that the well-known black slates of 
the Perseverance Mine appear to be represented near the Golden Ridge 
Mine at Slaty River, Anatori, and at this latter locality he obtained 
specimens of graptolites which would place these beds as Silurian in 
age. The Golden Ridge Mine is worked in similar beds, and, not- 
withstanding the fact that very little systematic work has been car- 
ried on there, the reef has yielded much richly auriferous stone, and 
would, he thinks, prove of great value if worked on a wider basis. In the 
vieinity of Big River and the Turimawiwi he mapped the boundary of the 
granite, which extends from Rocks Point northwards, and, occurring nearly 
at the mouth of Big River, forms a narrow strip inland, which is not seen 
on the surface further than the Turimawiwi, where it ends, as a conical hill, 
at the head of Independent Creek. He further examined the coal measures, 
eliciting little further information than was previously known ; but, from 
the limestones which overlie the caleareous sandstones of Kaipuhe cliffs, 
obtained bones of the giant fossil penguin, and he traced the boundaries of 
the different members of this Cretaceo-tertiary formation. The rocks in 
which the Golden Ridge Mine is worked appear to extend southwards 
through Friday and Independent Creeks, and form the greater part of the 
Wakamarama Mountains, being again met with on the Gouland Downs; it 
being from this district that Mr. Cox considers the auriferous cements were 
derived which have been worked on the quartz ranges near Collingwood, 
and which are probably contemporaneous in age with the Pliocene marls, 
which occupy a considerable area along the present course of the Aorere 
River and form the low hills along the coast-line between Takaka and 
