granite again appears. The mica-scliist and clay-slate zone, — 
which, in a breadth of 15 to 20 miles, includes principally the 
Anatoki and Haupiri ranges, probably continuing in a southern 
direction through the whole chain of the New Zealand Alps, — 
contains in its quartz veins and beds the matrix of the gold. 
The gradual denudation of the mountains, continued through count- 
less ages, has produced masses of detritus, which were deposited 
on the declivities of the mountains in the shape of conglomerates, 
and in the river valleys in the shape of alluvial gravel and sand. 
In this process of deposition , carried on under the influence of run- 
ning waters, nature herself has effected a washing operation, dur- 
ing which the heavier particles of gold contained in the mountain 
detritus collected themselves at the bottom of the deposits and 
close to their source, so that they can now be obtained by dig- 
ging and washing. The conglomerates accumulated on the slopes 
of the mountains are the proper field for the “dry diggings”, while 
from the gravel and sand of the beds of rivers and smaller streams 
the gold is obtained by “wet diggings The latter were those flrst 
worked. Nearly all the rivers and creeks running from the Ana- 
told and Haupiri Ranges, either East to the Takaka valley or 
West to the Aorere valley, or like the Parapara, towards North 
into Golden Bay, have been found to be more or less auriferous. 
The Aorere Diggings are situated partly in the main valley 
itself, partly in the numerous side valleys intersecting deeply the 
slate rock, 1 at a distance of 5 to 12 miles from Collingwood. The 
gold is washed from the alluvium of the rivers by sluice boxes and 
cradles. It is a scaly gold, with rounded particles, which prove 
that it has been exposed to the action of running water , and 
brought thither from a greater or less distance. Yet, nearly every 
1 The principal ones of those gold bearing rivers and creeks are: Apoos River 
with Apoos Flat, Lightband’s Gully, Cole's Gully, Golden Gully, Brandy Gully, Doc- 
tor's Creek, Bedstead Gully, Slate River with Wakefield Creek and Rocky River, 
Little and Great Boulder River, Salisbury Creek, Maori Gully; all of them tributaries 
from the right and their side branches rising in the Haupiri Range and its spurs. 
But recently gold was discovered also on Kaituna Creek, coming from the Waka- 
mara Range as a tributary from the left. 
