81 
likewise stratified upon old clay-slates and gray sandstones; at 
Kupakupa on the Waikato the coal bed showed a thickness of at 
least 15 feet. 1 I designate this ftoal field which probably sur- 
passes the Drury coal field in area, as the coal field of the lower 
Waikato Basin . It will not begin to be of importance until the 
beautiful country on the banks of the Waikato which, as yet, is 
in the possession of the natives, shall have passed into the hands 
of the enterprising European settlers. A third, probably very ex- 
tensive, but hitherto entirely untouched field of brown coal is found 
on the western and south-western borders of the Middle Waikato 
Basin . 2 From the existence of seams of brown coal on the Mokau 
River and on most of the tributaries of the Wanganui River, it is 
probable that another extensive brown coal field exists in the south- 
western part of the island, while there are also indications of a 
third extension of this same formation on the East coast. 
Of older coal deposits nothing was known besides the thin coal 
strata connected with fossil ferns on the West coast, South ot 
the mouth of the Waikato, which are most probably of a secon- 
dary age. 3 
On the other hand the youngest clay and sand deposits of a 
post-tertiary age on the shores of Manukau Harbour, in Drury and 
Papakura flats, and likewise the alluvial plains of the Waikato, the 
1 See Chap. XIV. 
2 The places in the Middle Waikato Basin, where coal was found, are the 
following: in the Hohinipanga-range West of Karakariki on the Waipa; near Mo- 
hoanui and Waitaiheke in the Houturu range on the upper Waipa; and in the 
Whawharua and Parepare Hills on the northern slope of the Rangitoto-range. 
3 A coal formation of a probably secondary age has only recently been de- 
tected in the northern districts of the Province of Auckland in a North and South 
line fifty miles North of Auckland to Wangaroa Harbour. A large portion of the 
isolated mass of hills at the North Cape is composed of this formation; and on the 
North side of the Harbour of Parenga-renga natural sections show these strata to 
be more than a thousand feet in thickness, although the coal is here only repre- 
sented by very thin and worthless seams. Attempts to open mines have been made 
in the vicinity of the Harbour of Wnngarei, seventy miles North from Auckland, 
and on the KawaKawa River , which enters the Bay of Islands. The bituminous 
coal from Kawa-Kawa is of superior quality to any other of the Auckland coals. 
Its color black, lustre resinous, fracture and cleavage very irregular and granular, 
powder and streak dark brown and glistening. (According to Dr. Hector.) 
Hochstetter, New Zealand. 6 
