74

branch from the south about two miles to the saddle
between it, and what now turns out to be the Moki-
hinni, not the Lyell as at first supposed. It is
called coal saddle by Mr. Rochfort, as here a seam
of good coal is found.

As the line was not blazed further than this point
and the part of the country I wished to see was on
proposed road, I joined Mr. Rochfort's party, and
assisted him to blaze a line on the south side of the
saddle towards the West Coast; examining the coun-
try as we went on. This, although it caused a little
delay in the first place; was, I am convinced the best
arrangement; as it enabled me to take advantage of
Mr. Rochfort's information, over the whole line of
country, without interrupting his road work. From
Coal saddle the track is taken down the side of the
mountain by an easy gradient, for about six miles;
it then crosses the river to the left bank, and con-
tinues through a very rugged gorge for about three
miles, to the junction of a large stream from the
north. Here, we ascended a mountain to see a better
view of the lower part of the gorge, and to see over
the surrounding country; and it was from this ele-
vated position, the discovery was made that the
river we were on was not a tributary of the Buller;
but most probably, the upper part of the Mokihinui.
The flat land, supposed to be at the junction of the
Buller and the Inangahua, proved to be an extensive
flat, of 5000 or 6000 acres, through which the Moki-
hinui flows. And the wide valley joining it from
the south, in the same direction as the Inangahua,
together with the very close resemblance between
the mountains there and the Paparoha range to the
south of the Buller, completed the deception, which
was almost perfect. It was not till we were suffi-
ciently far to the west, to get a view up this southern
branch, that the mistake could be discovered. From
this mountain Cape Foulwind was quite visible, and
we could even see the sea breaking on the Buller bar;
the mouth of the Buller bears south west, by pocket-
compass, from this point.

The great difficulty in exploring a mountainous
country, like this part of the Province of Nelson,
almost entirely covered with dense bush, is to fix
your position, when, after groping your way for days
through the bush, you are fortunate enough to
arrive at some place where a view of the country can
be obtained. This may be from the bare top of a
mountain, or the top of a tree; from such an obser-
vatory, in an uncertain position, topographical obser-
vations are necessarily vague and unsatisfactory;
particularly as the rugged mountains of New Zealand
present such different shapes, when seen from
various points.

I may here state, that, although there is little hope
by the route above mentioned of reaching the Inan-
gahua valley, and thus forming a direct road from
Nelson to the Grey country, still a very direct
road can be made this way to the mouth of the Mo-
kihinui, thus connecting that part of the coal field,
and a considerable extent of flat land situated on
this river, with Nelson. From the mouth of the Mo-
kihinui, to the mouth of the Buller, horses and cattle
can go along the beach without difficulty. The
road for the whole distance would be easy, except
about seven miles through the gorges above named,
and this would require a good deal of rock work to
this would require a good deal of rock work to
make a bridle track; but certainly there are no diffi-
culties which could not be surmounted, by a mode-
rate amount of labor; though at present it may be
said to be impassable even for foot passengers, for
the bed of the river cannot be travelled, and the
sides of the gorge are so steep and rocky, as to ren-
der walking, or rather scrambling along them, with-
out a path, a matter of great difficulty, and some
little danger.

On my return from the upper Wangapeka and the
country beyond it, I again visited the Baton, and
this time ascended the spur between Clark's and
Skeet's river, to the bare ranges south and west of
Mount Arthur; and after examining that part, and
making a more detailed survey of the base of the
mountains, I started for Nelson on the 27th of May,
and arrived on the evening of the 28th, after an
absence of six weeks.

Having now given a sketch of the route, I will
proceed to describe, as far as I can, the nature of the
country, more particularly the coal-bearing part of it.
And here let me observe that the examination of
such a rugged, broken country, formed of confused
masses of rocks of almost every kind, and the whole
surface covered with dense bush, is a task of no
ordinary difficulty; and to reduce it to any kind of
order, is more than I will pretend to attempt. I
shall therefore confine myself to a few facts, which I
fear will do little more than illustrate that difficulty.

The Wangapeka, Sherry, and Baton plains, and
the low hills between them, as also the base of the
mountains, are composed of a tertiary formation,
consisting of soft sandstone, marl, limestone, &c.,
with coal and shale in various places. At the
junction of the Wangapeka and the Sherry, the
limestone rocks of this formation, are found in cliffs
from 100 to 150 feet high, dipping pretty regularly
to south, south-west, about 35°. Under these rocks,
there is a small cave, with a stream of water flowing
through it, and in this stream, drift brown coal and
shale is found, and doubtless seams might be met
with. Towards the west, and skirting the base of
the mountains between the Wangapeka and the
Baton, the formation is much more broken and con-
fused, but about three miles up from the junction of the
Sherry, in a small branch of the Wangapeka, a seam
of brown coal about 2 feet thick is found; this dips
to east about 70°. I went about a mile and a half
further up this stream, and found nothing but ter-
tiary rocks in situ, generally very much on edge,
though in places they were nearly level for a short
distance. In this stream there were large boulders
and also angular masses of crystalline limestone.

The hills between the Wangapeka and the Baton
at the base of the mountains, so far as I can judge,
are entirely tertiary, with here and there a sort of
soft decomposed granite. The same formation, is
met with in the Baton river and its tributaries for
some considerable distance up. Many seams of coal
are found here, but so far as I have seen they are all
tertiary, and generally very much confused and
broken; for instance, one about six feet thick (coal
and shale together) crosses the river near the
store; this strikes north-east and south-west, with a
dip to south-east of 60. About 50 yards further
down, the river there is a seam of from two to three
feet thick in the same position, and both up and
down seams are found, but generally very much on
edge, and with certain of the coal and shale, and
So that had the coal at present known at the Baton
been of good quality, there would have been very
little chance of working it extensively; but all the
samples I have seen are of a very inferior quality,
and much mixed with shale. The seam opened by
Mr. Clark though at first sight it looks pretty well,
on closer examination is found to contain a very
large proportion of foreign matter, so intimately
mixed with the coal as to render separation impos-
sible; and though it burns the freely the greater por-
tion remains unconsumed, and the lump comes out
of the fire almost in the same shape as if we put in.

On ascending the spur between Clark's river and
Skeet's river, nothing can be seen of the formation
for some distance; but about 1000 feet above the
plain, several large gritty rocks are found, these eer-