THE GEOLOGY OP NELSON. 
93 
Motueka diggings, and will conclude this portion of my 
lecture by stating that the Nelson gold-fields are a fact, and 
that which is at present known is but the beginning of a series 
of discoveries which time will bring to light. 
With regard to other minerals in the western ranges, there 
are no indications of quicksilver, as it was supposed, But Mr. 
Skeet informed me that pieces of lead ore are found in the 
Waingaro River; and large masses of brown iron ore, which 
have been mistaken, from their somewhat similar appearance, 
for scoria, are deposited at the Parapara. This has given lise 
to the idea of the Parapara being volcanic. 
(2.) Primary Formations in the Pastern .Ranges. 
The eastern ranges are of an entirely different geological 
formation to those just described in the west; old.primary 
slates and sandstones, of very various character, foirn lofty 
ridges, intersected by parallel longitudinal valleys. The strata 
are all more or less vertical, and the parallelism of their strike 
from north-east to south-west continues with remarkable 
regularity. One and the same stratum can be tiaced from 
Cook’s Straits to the far interior in the south. 
In the central ridge, which has its northern termination in 
Mount Stokes, between the waters of the Pelorus and Queen 
Charlotte Sound, the slates exhibit a more crystalline character. 
At Ship’s Cove and Shakespeare Bay in Queen Charlotte 
Sound, in the Kaituna Pass and other places, almost crystalline 
micaceous clay-slates, with quartz layers and veins, occur. 
On either side of this central ridge the slates exhibit a more 
sedimentary character, alternating with dioritic-sehists, with 
amygdaloids, with very compact sandstones, approaching the 
character of graywacke. As no fossils have yet been found in 
those oldest sedimentary New Zealand schists, it is impossible 
to assign to them their geological place in a European classifi¬ 
cation of strata. 
The slate and sandstone ridges are flanked by serpentine. 
Below the confluence of the Blarich River with the Awatere, 
where the side of the mountain has slipped with an earthquake 
rent, serpentine appears. The Grey Mare’s Tail is a waterfall 
over a serpentine cliff. The serpentine extends, in a south¬ 
westerly direction, through the Blarich valley towards Mount 
