302 
along the margain of tills range, which seemed to deserve a closer 
examination. I, therefore, gave orders to land at Kupakupa, a 
small Maori settlement on the left bank, just where the plain 
strikes the mountains, and soon found a guide, who conducted us 
to the place. The name of the locality , where the coal seam 
crops out, is called Papahorahora, it is situated about one mile 
South of Kupakupa on the slope of a ridge of hills rising in the 
rear of the kainga, 1 in a height of 180 feet above the river. The 
natural opening was formed by a rupture at the upper end of a 
brook-detile leading to a pond on (lie west side of the village. Im- 
mediately below the yellow clay which covers the declivity of the 
hill, a horizontal bed of brown coal has been laid bare to the depth of 
15 feet. The whole seam, however, is probably still deeper by 
NW SE. 
Tairpni 
953 ' 
several feet, the sole of it being hidden from view. The locality 
is as favourable for mining as could be wished. The quality of 
the coal 2 is precisely the same as that of the Drury and Hunna 
coal near Auckland. Future explorations will show, that the same 
coal-bed continues also through the hills opposite on the right bank 
of the Waikato. 3 At any rate, there lies a considerable store 
of fuel , which will be raised as soon as European settlements have 
commenced to extend over the beautiful lands on the lower Wai- 
1 Kainga, is the Maori name for a settlement. 
2 The Rev. Mr. Ashwell at the Taupiri used this Kupakupa coal already years 
ago for domestic purposes, and found the same fossil gum in it, which is so fre- 
quently met with in the Drury coal. 
3 I must mention here, that it has been related to me, that between Lake 
Wangape and the West-coast there is a point, at which smoke is continually issu- 
ing from the ground. Perhaps it is nothing else than a coal-bed, which has spon- 
taneously ignited and has been burning for years. 
