524 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 16, 



At Milford Haven, the mountains rise bare and precipitous to the 

 height of 6000 feet. Indications of copper have been met with ; and 

 here the " ponamoo " of the natives, the jade or nephrite of mineral- 

 ogists, is found. 



To the northward of Milford Haven, the coast-line changes its 

 character, the mountain-ranges trending off to the N.E., leaving in 

 some places, as at Jackson's Bay, a level tract between their base and 

 the sea-coast ; and, as we advance still farther to the northward, fine 

 valleys, surrounded by undulating grassy hills, present themselves. 

 Considerable streams are said to run through these valleys, but none 

 are navigable. 



Approaching Cape Farewell in the neighbourhood of South Wan- 

 ganni, we come upon a carboniferous formation, consisting of beds of 

 sandstone and limestone (both fossiliferous), shales, and beds of coal*. 

 This formation occupies the whole of the N.W. extremity of the 

 Island, extending across to Massacre Bay, where the coal crops out 

 on the sea-beach, under a line of clifis composed of clay and gravel. 

 Beds of shale alternate with the coal ; some of the seams of the latter 

 are 4 feet in thickness, dipping to the eastward. Immediately over- 

 lying the uppermost seam of coal is a layer of gravel, composed of 

 water-worn pebbles of a beautiful white quartz ; and this, as has 

 been already stated, is found overlying all the carboniferous deposits 

 in the island. The fossils found in the limestone and sandstones are 

 apparently of the tertiary period ; Terehratula^ Ostrea, Pecten, and 

 Cardium are amongst the most common. 



Quartz-rock occurs in detached masses in the neighbourhood ; but 

 the basement rock of the district appears to be granitic, made up of 

 fragments of an older rock, mixed with large crystals of hornblende : 

 this is found extending from Torrent Bay to near Motowaka. 



At the head of Blind Bay, the Waimea Plain extends between 

 the ridges of mountains which stretch away to the south-west, and, 

 like all the plains of New Zealand (Middle Island), is formed by an 

 immense deposit of gravel. This consists of water- worn pebbles and 

 boulders of quartz and trap, with some yellow clay ; the quartz in 

 some instances is beautifully coloured. A thin covering of loam 

 overlies the gravel, and the soil is generally poor, except in the 

 neighbourhood of the Waimea River, where there is a fertile alluvial 

 deposit. In the neighbourhood of Nelson, a fossiliferous sandstone 

 is found, and seams of lignite and shale occur. 



Passing Nelson, along the eastern side of Blind Bay, the slate 

 formation which characterizes the whole south side of Cook's Straits 

 begins, — clay-slates, traps, intruded masses of serpentine, veins of 

 quartz, &c. At Nelson and Greville Bay, an immense boulder-bank, 

 running parallel with the coast-line, crosses each harbour ; at Nel- 

 son it is some miles in length. It is difficult to account for this, 

 othervrise than by conceiving it to be the remains of a ridge of hills 

 which have been worn down by the action of the weather ; and such 

 ridges are actually to be seen running in the same direction along 

 the coast. In all the harbours of the south side of Cook's Straits, 

 * For the character of this coal see further on, p. 528. 



