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I looked upon the Hutt valley, however, as almost a decisive test, for it 

 is the great valley of Tararua, and should no gold be found in it, I felt little 

 expectation of finding it elsewhere in these districts. We proceeded to sink a 

 hole in a gully behind Mr. Brown's house, in the Upper Hutt, where some 

 small scales of gold were previously reported to have been found. This hole 

 was sunk through clay and debris, bottoming on hard sandstone, at a depth of 

 eleven feet, without finding the " colour " of gold. In this hole, as in every 

 other which we sunk, we obtained a small quantity of iron sand. 



Our next endeavour was to bottom the gravel flats of the Upper Hutt in 

 several places, but from the influx of water we found this to be impracticable ; 

 the river evidently percolates through the gravel right across the valley and 

 the quantity of water was quite beyond the power of ordinary pumps. As, 

 however, the bed rock of slate, etc., crops out in many places above this, both 

 in the bed and on the banks of the Hutt, we were enabled to try the gravel 

 where ib rests upon the old rocks, but still without success. 



We devoted a clay to the hills above the Mungaroa swamp without 

 success. We next examined the valley of the Pakux-ataki and the gullies in 

 the neighbourhood of Featherston, with similar results. 



Passing the Tauherenikau, we proceeded to the Waiohine, which we 

 prospected and washed at every available place for a distance of six or seven 

 miles from the entrance of the gorge. As in the Hutt, it is impossible to 

 bottom the gravel bed of any of these streams below the water level, but 

 there is plenty of bed rock above the water level, with thick beds of drift 

 resting on it. No appearance of gold was found. The rocks were similar to 

 those found on the Pimutaka hill, including large quantities of soft pyritous 

 slates with carbonate of lime veins, and veins of a black mineral, graphite. 

 Boulders of amygdaloidal trap were found here, and also in the stream behind 

 Featherston. 



In the upper part of the Wairarapa valley, at the gorge of the Ruamahunga, 

 the formation is gravel of large size, resting upon the blue clay, and in the river 

 bed below may be seen the point of junction, where these tertiaries abut on 

 the old and highly inclined rocks. The rise from Masterton is tolerably rapid, 

 and on the Opaki plain, and the adjoining hills, are very palpable marks of the 

 earthquake of 1855 and perhaps of other shocks ; at one point there being a 

 lift in the plain of perhaps thirty feet, and a tertiary hill having been split in 

 two, and the western part having slipped down towards the river bed. 



In the upper part of the valley of the Buamahunga river, there is an 

 appearance of a valley of some extent within the hills, btit the bush is so dense 

 that I will not venture to guess at the extent of terrace land which may be 

 there. It lies, however, at a height of over 1000 feet above the sea. After 

 rather sthT wading lip the river for about six miles, we found the water become 

 so deep from the compression of the bed of the river between perpendicular 

 cliffs, about 150 feet high, that we were obliged to abandon the river bed and 

 take to the forest above. We had by this time, after repeated trials, given up 

 all hopes of finding gold, and were on the look out for a point from whence to 

 ascend the central range ; when, after we had proceeded for a mile or two 

 through the bush, the weather suddenly changed, and it soon rained 

 so hard as to force us to a precipitate retreat. My experience of the Ruama- 

 hunga was this, that one day's rain raised the river, on the following day it 

 was in full flood, on the third day the stream was fit to travel, and on the 

 fourth day it began to rain again. 



Jaspar and green serpentinous rock are characteristic of the Buamahunga 

 valley. There is not much appearance of quartz. To a person desirous of 

 reaching the top of the central range, the valley of the Ruamahunga offers the 

 advantage of starting from an elevation of over 900 feet above the sea before 



