11 
0 .— 13 . 
I. — Recent. 
Northern part of Westland. 
(a.) Glacier Deposits. — Glacier deposits in course of formation are found only around the 
sources of the Hokitika River, and, as a factor in the liberation of gold liable to be carried to the 
coast-line, are of little importance. Neither are they of much consequence as affording gold 
directly from the morainic heaps, as these accumulate. The rocks concerned in the production of 
these morainic accumulations are, it would appear, not highly impregnated with auriferous quartz 
reefs, and, besides, the moraines themselves are accumulated in such distant and inaccessible parts 
of the country that they would require to be very rich in gold to tempt the miner to explore and 
work them. 
(b.) River Alluvia. — In the Mikonui and the upper part of the Totara Rivers gold-workings 
have been carried on in the beds and immediate banks of these streams ; but in this southern part 
of the district it is Donnelly’s Creek, Jones’s Creek, and a number of small streams draining from 
the western part of the Mount Greenland block of mountains, that yielded gold in such quantities 
as made the Ross district famous in the early days of gold-mining on the West Coast. Some part 
of this gold was undoubtedly directly derived from the auriferous Maitai rocks of Mount Greenland, 
but there can be no question that the greater part, found in the recent wash of the beds and banks 
of the various streams draining from the western slopes of the range, was derived from gravels of 
older date present in the creek-valleys or resting on or forming the lower slopes of the outer 
hills. 
In the Hokitika Valley, above Kanieri, there have been but few, and these unimportant, 
workings along the bed and banks of the main stream, or of its largest tributary, the Kokatahi 
River, and its various affluents. Recently it has been reported that payable gold has been got on 
the banks of the Hokitika, at or just below the junction of the Kokatahi. But if the Hokitika is 
to be regarded as an at-present-gold-bearing river, the gold-workings at Woodstock and the Kanieri 
Townships must be regarded as recent deposits due to the action of the Hokitika, and the geological 
evidence does not bear this assumption out. At Woodstock the gold- workings are in gravels that 
underlie glacier accumulations, and consequently are to be excluded from deposits coming under 
this head. On the opposite side of the river, at the Kanieri Township and Commissioners’ Flat, the 
relation of the auriferous wash to the moraine-heaps is, in certain cases, that it passes under them, 
and in others that the gold of the superficial deposits should properly be considered as having been 
brought down the Kanieri River. Yet it is true that at the Kanieri Township the gold-bearing 
gravels on the immediate banks of the river and on the seaward side of the morainic hills may, 
without doing violence to the truth, be considered as being due to the action of the Hokitika. 
Along the Kanieri River a considerable amount of gold-working has been carried on in beds of 
this age at, above, and below the Forks, and in several tributary streams, such as Coal Creek, 
Butcher's Creek, &c., but all of these streams derive their gold not from the rock matrices direct, 
but from older alluvial or glacier deposits that are to be found in that neighbourhood. 
In the Three-mile Creek the recent alluvial auriferous deposits are wholly derived from alluvial or 
glacier detritus brought from a distance and deposited prior to the action of the present stream upon 
them. These older gravels being auriferous, and m certain cases very richly so, the result has been that 
the gravels of the bed of the Three-mile Crebk and lower flats along the banks have yielded large 
quantities of gold, the Blue Spur Flat having maintained a large population for many years. 
In the Arahura Valley gold has been worked along the bed of the stream and over parts of the 
low flats on its banks from below the Christchurch-Hokitika Road to the foot of the second gorge, 
and for a long time maintained a considerable population. Tributary streams joining the Arahura 
from the south have also yielded gold to a considerable extent from their modern alluvia. These 
are the several creeks between the Christchurch Road and Humphrey’s Gully, Humphrey’s Gully 
itself and MacDonald’s and German Gullies, and others of lesser consequence farther up the valley 
as far as Caledonian Creek ; all of these being auriferous, but indicate a prior existence of alluvial 
auriferous deposits, from which the gold in their beds and on their banks has been derived, and this 
since none of these creeks contain within their watersheds any solid rocks of a character likely to 
carry auriferous reefs or afford other than alluvial gold. On the north side of the Arahura Valley 
there is a considerable extent of alluvial land, stretching from the river bank to the foot of the 
southern Waimea Hills, over which gold may be found. The higher part of this terrace-plain may, 
however, be more properly treated of under another heading. 
Along the Kawaka River, and in the flatter low grounds of Fox's Creek, beds and deposits of this 
age are known to be auriferous, but along the Kawaka River they have never to any extent paid 
for working, and in Fox’s Flat the ground is too wet and deep to be readily worked, or worked 
for sufficient returns — at least, so says report in general. It is, however, an opinion strongly 
expressed by miners whose opinions are entitled to respect that Fox’s Flat must contain rich 
deposits, seeing the Creek, where workable, and Fox’s Hill were very rich diggings. 
In the Waimea Valley the great bulk of the gold-workings are to be regarded as being in gravel- 
deposits of this age, for though it is quite true that the present stream passing along the valley 
could not and did not bring the auriferous wash into the watershed of the Waimea, after the Arahura 
abandoned this valley as its course to the sea, without question a considerable reassortment of 
the alluvia it left were effected by the waters of the present Waimea and its different 
tributaries. Yet such heavy deposits as are found in Tunnel Terrace and at other places in the 
valley must be referred to the action of the Arahura, and not to that of the Waimea, which is an 
inconsiderable and wholly modern river. Liverpool Bill’s Gully and the right- and left-hand 
branches of the Waimea not having at any time been former channels of the Arahura, their alluvial 
gravels must be regarded as derived from glacier deposits or from the gravels of the “Old-man 
bottom,” rearranged and concentrated by the action of the present streams in immediately modern 
times. 
