NEW ZEALAND
GOVERNMENT GAZETTE
(PROVINCE OF NELSON).

Published by Authority.

All Public Notifications which appear in this Gazette, with any Official Signature thereunto annexed, to be considered as Official Communications made 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, SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 1863. No. 7.

Provincial Secretary's Office, Nelson,
April 9, 1863.

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

J. C. RICHMOND,
Provincial Secretary.

To his Honor the SUPERINTENDENT, Nelson.

SIR—In accordance with your instructions, given on the 11th February last, I accompanied Mr. Hough for the purpose of searching for a pass to the Karamea which had been reported by him to exist, but, as I had expected from a previous acquaintance with the district, I found nothing of the kind. From this point I then began to explore southward going from Mount Arthur along the dividing range, which I intended to follow until I could ascertain whether any break existed in it through which a road might be made that would connect the now settled portion of Nelson with the western rivers, especially the Lyell, a small tributary of the Buller, the mouth of which is the site of the last rush of gold diggers.

I ascended by a long manuka spur leading up from the River Baton, a mile below Mr. Salisbury's wharf. In this locality, found, I think, by Mr. Salisbury, is a small seam of coal, and a kind of shale, with minute shell fossils; this coal is black, and is reported to be, and I believe is, of secondary formation.

At a height of 1,400 feet above the Baton, where I camped, there is an indication of black coal. On looking for water, I found the same shale as that which exists in the lower part of the Waimangaron. This was on its south hill-side, opposite the claim known as Wihaere's, and it showed in the hill for a distance up the river as far as Forrester's claim. I descended for several hundred feet, but did not arrive at its termination, and feeling assured that a search for coal in this neighborhood would be rewarded by success, I suggested that Mr. Burnett should be despatched for the purpose of making an examination, but unfortunately, when that gentleman arrived in the neighborhood, I was in the Buller district, and, consequently, he could get no information that would place him in possession of the spot where I had seen indications of the existence of coal. This I greatly regretted, because coal shows itself in the river at a very low elevation, and shale 1,400 feet above it, in a spot not exceeding a distance of forty miles from Nelson.

I would here beg to quote, from the Penny Cyclopaedia, a description of Madeley Colliery, at Coalbrook Dale, in England, in order to shew that a search for coal might even require to be conducted by boring or driving levels into the hill, and that it is quite possible for plenty of coal to exist, and yet for it not to crop out:—

"The Coalbrook Dale Coalfield rests on transition rock. It extends from Wombridge, in the parallel of Wellington, to Coal Port, on the Severn, a length of about six miles; its greatest breadth is about two miles. The coal measures are composed of the usual alternating strata, which occur without much regularity, except that each bed of coal is almost immediately covered by indurated or slaty clay, and not by sandstone. The strata are eighty-six in number. In