Canterbury and, Westland. 2G5 



stances, payable gold-fields have "been formed by their disintegration. 

 In this province, no payable gold-field has been opened up amongst 

 the rocks of this formation, and in Otago, according to Captain 

 Hutton, only the Naseby Groldfields have exclusively been derived 

 from it — {Geology of Otago, page 34). I only know of three reefs 

 occurring in this formation on the eastern slopes of the Southern Alps? 

 which might be termed regular lodes, but their unauriferous character 

 nas either been proved on closer examination, or they have not yet 

 been tested. One of these reefs is situated in the small range between 

 the two main Waihao branches. It consists of a yellowish, somewhat 

 ferrugineous quartz, and appears to be several feet thick, but it is 

 much covered up, so that it is impossible, without clearing it, to obtain 

 further details. Another is situated on the southern banks of the 

 IKakahu river ; it is about three feet broad, strikes south-west and 

 north-east, and consists of a flinty quartz. An assay, made of stone 

 taken from this reef, did not give the least trace of gold, and it is 

 therefore evident that the wash-gold found in small quantities in the 

 "banks of the Kakahu river, is derived from the interlaminated quartz ; 

 just as in the Upper Waihao, where regular quartz reefs are entirely 

 absent. Another reef of considerable thickness, near McQueen's 

 Pass in Banks' Peninsula, has also proved to be unauriferous. In the 

 Makaroa valley, the " colour," to use a miner's term, can be obtained 

 everywhere in the alluvial deposits, but nowhere has ground been 

 discovered in that district, derived from the rocks belonging to the 

 Waihao formation, sufficiently rich to pay working expenses. Of 

 other ores, nothing of value has as yet been discovered in this 

 formation. Some of the micaceous schists, as for instance near the 

 head of the Makaroa, are full of iron pyrites. In others, the grains, 

 or interlaminations of quartz, contain small nests or concretions of 

 mispickel, as for instance in the Biver Hopkins. 



