DESCltll’TIYE JfAKKATIVE OF JOtJJRXEY. 
43 
From the 17th to the 28th of May I was occupied in examining 
this most important district. After having followed the different 
ferruginous sandstones, clays, and grindstones, which occur in 
regular succession, I found, below the underlying grits, the first 
small seams of coal, the examination of which completed my first 
day’s work. 
* 
The next morning, continuing in a systematic way, I soon 
had the pleasure of discovering the main seam, which I followed 
up to the bed of a small rivulet, where it was lying exposed to a 
depth of twelve feet six inches. 1 must confess that I was much 
excited, because, on examining the coal in situ, it was clear to me 
that I had to do with a real coal, its compactness, specific gravity, 
lustre, and combustibility, leaving nothing to be desired. As the 
seam struck in a regular way across the river, whilst at the same 
time I was able to trace it towards the north, 1 had no difficulty 
J t- 
in concluding that the spot upon which I was standing would 
prove a source of great wealth, not only to this district, hut to the 
colony at large. In a few years, I said to myself, instead of the 
wilderness, we shall have the dwellings of men; instead of a few 
birds, now its only inhabitants, we shall have a busy population of 
miners enlivening the country; the shriek of the locomotive will 
resound through its valleys, and busy life and animation will 
everywhere be seen. The harbour will be the resort of numerous 
colliers, and an active population will replace the inert savages 
who now occupy the pah. The Grey district, possessing easy 
communication with other parts of the colony, will, I hope, 
soon be peopled, and its farmers find their market amongst a 
mining population. I may be pardoned if, instead of reporting 
mere fact, I have here given way to my feelings, but I conceive 
that the most matter-of-fact man would become imaginative when 
standing upon a spot containing such a vast store of mineral 
wealth. 
In order more fully to examine, these valuable deposits, I 
ordered the tents to be pitched, and determined to lay the whole 
seam open. As Mr. Mackay intended to start, however, the next 
day, and required Puaha’s services, I sent Mr. Burnett down 
to engage another Maori in case Dick should not have re¬ 
covered. 
Mr. Burnett left next morning, and we, in order to get at the floor 
of the coal seam, began to dig a ditch. By this means we opened 
the seam to a depth of fifteen feet; we did not succeed in reaching 
the floor, the water of the little streamlet being very troublesome, 
and filling the hole as fast as we dug it out. I could see too that 
along the southern side of the river the whole seam was lying 
exposed, so after another day’s work at the ditch we left off, and 
I continued my examination. I had not yet found any fossils, 
and therefore devoted the next two days to a search amongst the 
almost vertical cliffs which here form the southern side of the 
