1854.] HEAPHY — GOLD IN NEW ZEALAND. 33 



the Islands of Waiheke and Ponui, however, intervening. In the 

 Auckland district, in a space of about 20 miles square, may be counted 

 thirty or more extinct or quiescent craters, the fires of which appear 

 to have burst up through horizontal clays and sands, in which a 

 scoriaceous ash, in thick beds, was already a component part. 



The localities in which gold has been found. — Gold, either in con- 

 siderable quantities, or in specks, only discernible on carefully wash- 

 ing the sand, exists in the beds of many of the streams of the penin- 

 sula. Rich deposits are also found in the clay on the slopes and 

 spurs of the chief mountain range. 



The Valley of the Kapanga, and the mode of working. — The gold 

 was first found at the Kapanga stream, which, following a southerly 

 course for about 4 miles, at the foot of the main range, flows into 

 Coromandel Harbour on the western side of the peninsula. 



The bed of the Kapanga is rocky ; large boulders of quartz and 

 fragments of trap occasionally forming "bars," and causing falls in 

 the stream of 2 or more feet in height. Immediately below these 

 *'bars," and on the side where during freshets there is an eddy, is 

 the spot where the deposit of gold is the richest. The diggers, in 

 parties of four or six, with the aid of tackles and levers, haul out the 

 larger fragments, and carefully sift and wash the gravel which lies 

 below them. At a depth of from 5 to 7 feet from the surface the 

 *' bed-rock" is generally laid bare, and immediately on this the largest 

 specimens of gold are found. The party excavate, in the manner de- 

 scribed, for about twenty yards up the course of the stream, to the 

 fall ; then, having turned the water into the hollow so dug, they con- 

 tinue their work on the opposite side of the stream-bed. In this 

 unscientific manner a party working steadily may obtain about a 

 quarter of an ounce per day per man. 



The banks of the stream are steep, and covered, as in the whole 

 mountain range, with a thick growth of timber. When wooden 

 troughs are made to conduct the water along at a higher level, and 

 the stream-bed be so left dry, it is very probable that the yield of 

 gold will be much increased. 



The gold, however, is not confined to the bed of the stream ; the 

 soil on all the flats and banks of the stream, where the ravine is nar- 

 row, yields grains of gold on careful washing. In one place, on a 

 slope of the hill about 150 yards from the stream, a deposit was 

 found of such richness as to yield 400^. worth of auriferous quartz 

 from the space of eighty square yards. There the gold was disco- 

 vered in a small runnel of water, amongst the roots of the trees on 

 the surface. Immediately below was a layer, about 10 inches deep, 

 of quartz-grit (Specimens F.), lying on a mass of yellow and blue 

 clay, which in its turn rested on porphyritic breccia (Specimens A.) 

 at a depth of about 30 feet. Upon washing the quartz-grit (Speci- 

 mens F.), it was found to contain much gold, although the clay around 

 and below yielded scarcely any trace of the metal. The quartz layer 

 dipped at a slight inclination in the direction of the stream below, 

 and pursued its course for about thirty yards on a wavy plane, at a 

 mean depth of 4 feet below the surface. 



VOL. XI. — PART I. D 



