ON THE DISCOVERY OF AWARUITE. 63 



since written to and interviewed a number of persons who, I thought, 

 could aid me in the matter. The results of these endeavours have not, 

 however, T am sorry to say, come up to my expectations, owing to loss 

 and damage of specimens sent to me, and various other mishaps. Thus 

 my hope that some, from amongst quite a little army of prospectors 

 (about 150 men) who, aided by the Government, landed towards the 

 end of 1886 in Big Bay, would collect and send specimens was quite 

 disappointed, as not one of the party penetrated as far inland as the 

 Bed Hill. In fact they soon became so dissatisfied with the hard work 

 of exploring the rough country that they hurriedly left the district in 

 troops, and very soon after not one of them remained In 1887, I was, 

 however, gratified in receiving from Mr. Macfarlane a larger sample of 

 the Awaruite-bearing sand from the Gorge River, together with portions 

 of a serpentine pebble of nephritic aspect, containing small specks of 

 Awaruite. During the same year, and again in 188tf, an intrepid, 

 enterprising prospector, Mr. Robert Paulin, with several hired men, 

 traversed the Bed Hill district in various directions, prospecting the 

 rivers and creeks ; and from him I received last year, besides a few 

 more specimens of serpentine and other rocks, some valuable notes, 

 accompanied by a sketch-plan of the district, indicating the distribution 

 of the Awaruite and the extent of the peridotite and serpentine rocks. 

 The several small rock-samples so far enumerated, of which the collection 

 brought by Messrs. Henderson and Butement was the most diversified 

 and important, have thus been all the available material to work upon ; 

 whilst regarding the general geological structure of the country, and 

 more especially the mode of occurrence and extent of the peridotite 

 and derived serpentine rocks, I can oidy give an imperfect outline, 

 gathered from the reports and notes received from Mr. Gerhard 

 Mueller, Messrs. Henderson and Butement, Mr. Macfai lane, Capt. 

 Malcolm, Mr. Paulin, and several other persons I met since who have 

 traverse! the district. 



Begarding the general geological structure of the country it is 

 reported that the ranges from near the sea-coast inland to the ice-clad 

 Dividing Bange, except where broken through by the peridotite and 

 derived serpentine rocks, consist of metamorphic schists (gneiss, mica- 

 schist, and chlorite-schist) with occasional massive protrusions and 

 probably large dykes of granite and quartz porphyry. Judging from a 

 few small specimens obtained from Mr. Paulin, the granite is medium- 

 grained and rather felspathic (felspar fl 'sh-coloured), with principally 

 dark mica ; whilst the gneiss and mica-schist are of ordinary character, 

 showing also mainly dark mica. Where the spurs from the high 

 ranges do not directly dip steep into the ocean, massive deposits of 

 sandstone and shale and in some cases limestone, of probably older 

 Tertiary age, overlie the old rocks along the coast to pretty high up the 

 easy slopes of the spurs ; whilst down the main river- valleys, mostly r 

 on both sides, descend extensive high terraces of boulder-drift and hard 



In consequence of these mistakes Sir James Hector, the Director of the Geological 

 Survey of New Zealand, in a letter in the March number of ' Nature ' 1887, casts a 

 suspicion of piracy upon me regarding the discovery of the mineral, and accuses me of 

 ignorance as to the second point, although perfectly innocent on both these charges, as 

 my letters to Professors Judd, Bonney, and others can prove. I have iievertheiess 

 considered it necessary to lay before the Society the foregoing succinct statements of 

 facts relating to the matter, which will afford the explanation which Sir James Hector 

 says the case requires. 



