Sutherland. — Cat's Eye Bay. 435 



The association for the promotion of this should be formed as soon as 

 the railway to Eotorua is a certainty, and a certain amount of planting of 

 fruit and ornamental trees ought to be undertaken at the earliest possible 

 date. Not an hour that can be saved should be lost, in furthering this 

 project, and the writer commends it to the careful consideration of all his 

 fellow-colonists, desiring in any way to promote the prosperity of the 

 country at large, and our own provincial district in particular. 



Art. LV. — Cat's Eye Bay. By Donald Sutherland. 

 [Bead before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 13th February, 1885.] 

 Plate XX. 

 On our way to House-roof by boat from Milford Sound last July (1884) we 

 went into Cat's Eye Bay. As it is the only bay on this coast that I have 

 not visited I intended to have a look at it, so we made a stay of about ten 

 days, and I will send this sketch of it on to you as well as I can make it 

 out. The entrance to this river is not unlike the one at Transit Beach ; 

 the bar is about dry at low water, then about 200 yards further in it 

 deepens from 4 to 5 feet for about 400 yards ; here there is a second bar 

 being about 3 feet above low water-mark and having about a foot of water 

 running over it at low water. The bar is about 200 yards long, then it 

 deepens again from 2 to 18 feet, and this depth runs up about two miles, 

 that was as far as we could get with the boat. We went up the river 

 with the boat from the bar about two and a half miles — the river runs 

 back about five and a half miles ; there is a saddle about 800 feet high 

 on the south branch of this river, which is the largest of the two ; over 

 this saddle the valley runs back some miles at about the same level as 

 far as I could see towards the south-east ; the north branch is very small. 



The formation about here is much the same as at most of the other 

 sounds. I could find no trace of any one being here before. Kakapos, 

 kiwis, and roas, are plentiful on the south side of the river, and there are 

 plenty of penguins on the north-east side of it. I found some wreckage of 

 a vessel and some copper rings on the beach. With a very high tide most 

 of the flat is covered at high water. There are a good many reefs, mostly 

 white quartz. I think the valley that runs to the south-east in the bay 

 runs into the lake valley to the north of the head of George Sound. I 

 went up to the head of George Sound after leaving Cat's Eye Bay and had 

 a look around there, and by the bearings I took I think I am right. The 

 Cat's Eye Valley is 400 to 500 feet higher than the lake, cutting it at about 

 right-angles about seven or eight miles from the head of George Sound, 



