148 
Pioneer country drained by the Pioneer Elver and 
is rudely triangular in shape, and of about six hundred square miles m extent but y 
far the greater portion is occupied by crystalline rocks and alluvial soil. It is only 
and there t^t any se™^^^^ - exposure of intens^y 
metamorphosed sandstones, grits, and shales, with intr™ dykes 
ITiehcr UP the river, below the bridge at Pleystowe Mill, is a series of black shale 
showing little or no alteration beyond a slight increase in hardness within a coup 
inches of a dyke of diorite-porphyrite with which the rocks are associated. 
IntlJhills to the south of Ashburton Mill, sandstones and shales dip W. 
25° to 30° and a bed of volcanic ash occurs among the sedimentary roc s. 
Inrim hills between Ashburton and the Eowen Eoad, black, sightly indurated 
shales dip at 15° to E.N.B. Black \Yaterholes Creek rises in a deep, 
whose sides show sections of coarse altered sandstones and grits, below which bla 
idy Ses are seen to dip to E. at an angle of 10°. One of the 
of Bkek Waterholes Creek shows a quartzite underlaid by a ^ery hard lydianised s 
?yinVhorizontally. Eurther up the creek, in Selections 1602 and 141- the rocks are 
pirLd by an intrusive granite. Lower down the creek, greyish sandstones and blac 
shales dip^atAStil^^AE-butari^^ of the Pioneer show sandstones and grits all “’i 
less metamorphosed, so much so in some places that, in the absence of bedding-planes, 
rinnlo-marks &c. they might easily be mistaken for some forms of granite. 
On the spurs of the Main Eange, between Cattle Creek and a tributary nam 
Dalrymple Creek, the gradual passage from a comparatively unaltered grit i‘ito a gr ^ 
can bo satisfactorily traced. Starting with a grit showing distinct ^ 
quartzite is next seen, passing in turn into what appears to be a ^ ‘ ^ 
Lding in a true granite. Several similar instances can be seen in this a^^a- 
noteworthy case occurs near Snake Hill, on the divide between the ^ 
Creek and Stockyard Creek. Here a micaceous sandstone merges almost insensi 7 
into a medium-grained granite. Unnlra nf the 
At several places along the slopes of the hills on "L^d 
Pioneer, near the Blue Mountains, horizontal sandstones and shales are interstrat 
with opposite Selection 1221, a bed of 
overlies a horizontal bed of grit. Earther up Ae hill a bed of volcanic ash, comp 
of subaiigular fragments of rock, rests on the diorite. , j f 1 1 i Polo .Imniug 
In the bed of Constant Creek, below Selection 7o6, a bed of black shale, d pp 
S.S.W. at 10°, contains three bands of fireclay, varying from one to our 
thickness. These have often imbedded among them flat circular 
nodules. In Selection 1358 the shales are vertical and are faulted against a Sne-g n 
sandstone. In the Township Eeserve, east of Mount Jukes, sandstones and stales w 
an intrusive orthoclase porphyry, dip at 20° to H.W. 
Mount Toby Eange, and flows over alternations of grit and shale which her ^ 
a good deal, and are well seen in the Bowen Eoad, between the Leap and Jolimo 
^*‘'*'°\urray Creek rises in one of the spurs of Mount Dalrymple, and drains an ar^ 
mainly composed of crystalline rocks. The only tributary it receives whose wate 
flow o - — 3 .0 
black shales, with one or two highly carbonaceous bands, semi-vitreous white sandston 
