94 
GEOLOGY. 
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Franklin, and consisting of a compact blackish green augitic 
porphyry, with crystals of uralite, is the most important.. 
The Spencer mountains themselves, which tower with their 
rugged peaks above all these regular cones, consist of the . same 
sedimentary strata as the ranges east of the town of Nelson, with 
which they stand in the closest connection. These strata become 
more crystalline towards the east (their axis), exhibiting the same 
characters as those of the sectioirwhich I obtained last year when 
examining the chains from Nelson over the Pelorus to Queen 
Charlotte Sound. The slates, which on the western side are mere 
clay slates, there become more crystalline, alternating with dioritic 
schists, and passing, near the axis, into almost crystalline mica¬ 
ceous clay slates, with quartz layers and veins, and have a re¬ 
markably regular strike and dip, as I observed on tracing them 
from Queen Charlotte Sound towards the south-west to the Kai- 
tuna pass. 
I am not able at present to say in what connection the two 
chains on the eastern and western sides of the fissure (where they 
almost meet) stand to each other, as I did not travel so far; but 
judging by the boulders in the Maruia, where this river leaves the 
Cannibal’s Gorge, the eruptive rocks must cease there; for, not¬ 
withstanding the most minute examination, I was unable to dis¬ 
cover any trace of them, finding only the same sandstones and 
slates as before described, mixed with the detritus of the western 
chains, which has quite another character, and of which I shall 
speak in the sequel. 
Before leaving the Spencer mountains, I may offer a few re¬ 
marks upon their origin. We see in the longitudinal fissure, and 
in the mountains on both sides of it, the effects of a great dis¬ 
turbance in the earth’s crust, but we do not see all its causes. 
These we have principally to seek in the Kaikoras. Unfor¬ 
tunately, when I last year examined the Wairau and Awatere 
districts, I did not find the necessary time (as the results of my 
field work had to be embodied in my friend Dr. Hochstetter’s 
lecture, and his stay in New Zealand was necessarily limited) to 
follow the last river sufficiently far to obtain a clear insight into 
the structure of that magnificent mountain system ; but from the 
boulders collected in the Awatere, it was certain that it consists 
partly of eruptive and partly of volcanic rocks. I speak here only 
of the inland Kaikoras, because, after having seen the seaward 
Kaikoras, although only from the deck of a steamer, I am satis¬ 
fied that, like the Spencer mountains, they are composed of sedi¬ 
mentary strata, the chains of which they consist striking north¬ 
east and south-west, with large longitudinal valleys between them, 
and not having in their outline the least appearance of volcanic or 
eruptive origin. 
It is further an important fact, that all the rivers having their 
sources in that district flow parallel with those chains from south- 
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