NEW ZEALAND
GOVERNMENT GAZETTE
(PROVINCE OF NELSON).

Published by Authority.

All Public Notifications which appear in this Gazette, with any Official Signature thereunto annexed, are to be considered as Official Communications to those Persons to whom they may relate, and are to be obeyed accordingly.

By His Honor's command,
J. C. RICHMOND, Provincial Secretary.

VOL. XI. NELSON, MONDAY, JUNE 8, 1863. No. 16.

Provincial Secretary's Office, Nelson,
June 8, 1863.

HIS Honor the Superintendent directs the publication of the following Report, for general information.

J. C. RICHMOND,
Provincial Secretary.

Nelson, June 5, 1863.

To his HONOR the SUPERINTENDENT,
Nelson.

SIR,—

In compliance with instructions conveyed to me in a letter from the Provincial Secretary, dated March 11, 1863, I have the honor to inform you that to carry out those instructions, I was obliged to make two journeys to the Wangapeka, Baton, &c., as the limited time at my disposal on my first visit, was not sufficient to carry out the work.

In this report I shall in the first place, give an account of the route taken on these journeys, without reference to the formation of the country; and then compile all the information I have collected on this point; this will be better than giving a detailed account of the two separate journeys.

I started from Nelson on the 17th of March last, and proceeded by the Tadmor road to the Wangapeka; made a hasty examination of the country in the lower part of that river, more particularly the north side towards the Baton. I then went up to Rolling River (a branch of the Wangapeka flowing from the south) and met with Mr. Rochfort's road party, but unfortunately he himself was in the interior, and from what I heard, I gave up all idea of meeting with him at that time. As it would have been quite impossible even to have gone over the ground necessary for making the most superficial examination of the coal field, during the short time I had to stay; I determined to delay the more distant part of my journey, until I could accompany Mr. Rochfort, and have the advantage of his previous knowledge of the different localities, where he had already found coal and indications of it. Acting on this idea, I merely devoted one day to the examination of the Upper Wangapeka, which I traced up eight or nine miles beyond the Rolling River. Next day I started for the Baton, by the road over the hills, near the junction of the Wangapeka and the Sherry, which enabled me to make some observations on the formation of the country, between these rivers and the Baton plain. On this occasion I had not time to examine the ridge spoken of by Mr. Rochfort, on the more elevated portions of the district; so I confined my observations to the banks of the river, and the lower part of the mountains; and returned to Nelson, by the road through Dove Dale, arriving on the 29th of March, 1863.

After finishing my plans and reports on the Buller and Mokihinui; I again started on the 16th of April, to continue the work I had commenced on my last journey. I joined Mr. Rochfort on the Wangapeka plain, and went with him to the source of that river, on the saddle between it and the Karamea; (about 26 or 27 miles above the plain) thence down the Karamea about one and a half miles, and up a small