18

Madeley Colliery, a shaft is sunk 729 feet, through all the beds. The first coal seam, which occurs at the depth of 102 feet, is very sulphureous, and not more than four inches thick; nine other beds of a similar nature, but rather thicker, occur between this and the depth of 396 feet. This coal is called "stinking coal," and is only employed in the burning of lime. The first seam of coal that is worked is 496 feet deep, and five feet thick. Two other beds of coal occur, one ten inches and the other three feet thick, before the bed of "big flint" sandstone, which is found at the depth of 576 feet. Nine beds of coal occur of the aggregate thickness of sixteen feet, between the "great flint" and the "little flint" (an interval of 100 feet). Beneath the "little flint" and the lowest bed of the whole formation, there is a sulphureous "eight-inch coal."

This account refers particularly to Madeley Colliery. The coal of this field is usually a formation of slate coal and pitch coal.

To continue my report. Above the manuka spur leading from the Baton, the hill, which is very rocky, exposes a beautiful kind of hornblende granite. Above this again, on the summit, slate exists, with small shell fossils, often intersected with veins of quartz. Samples of this I forwarded to you in one of my early letters.

I proceeded for about two miles along this, the Mount Arthur range (feeders from which on one side fall into the Baton and Wangapeka, and on the other to the Karamea), which was very thick, both covered with a scrubby bush. On the second of these dips, at about the spot below where I was, and on the Karamea side, coal can be seen cropping out. At least it was reported to me by a man named Brown, who followed our tracks, and who had camped here, that in descending for water, he had stumbled upon some coal. His description was certainly a vague one, but this at least is certain, that whatever coal exists there it would be of the black or secondary formation.

I continued along the range, which in some places contains gentle slopes, with several kinds of good grass (seeds and specimens of which I send to you), but in others the descent is very abrupt. After a distance of about ten miles, I found that the range suddenly stopped; this was opposite the northern end of the Mount Owen cluster; there is, however, on the northern side a tolerably low bush saddle, which divides a small branch of the Wangapeka from a feeder of the Karamea. Part of this saddle is of limestone, and about 2,500 feet in height. I may say that I can only, as yet, give an approximation to the heights of different hills as I have not yet had time to compare the scale of the instrument which I took (an Aneroid) with a barometer, at different levels, but I do not think the error will exceed 200 feet.

The vegetation of this saddle is birch (from the trees being five feet through), manuka, nene, deep moss, flax, toi-toi, tutu, fern trees, koromiko, and lawyers or brambles.

From this branch, but lower down, two small feeders run up towards Mount Arthur and the Baton. This would be the shortest route to the auriferous districts, and would be nearly all sideling. I crossed this saddle, and reached an isolated range running northerly, and parallel to the last-mentioned branch of the Karamea down to the Baton. It is of the same formation as the range I had just left. This mountain or isolated range is nearly surrounded by branches of the Karamea; only a small portion of it, the south-east extremity, being bounded by the main Wangapeka, at which corner there is also a small lake, containing three or four acres of water, which is one of the feeders of the Wangapeka. This little lake is situated in a hollow of the range looking south-into a valley of its own, whose further side completely shuts out any other view. A small stream, an outlet of the lake,

meanders down this valley, threading its way through numerous little pools till lost in the bush; it afterwards rushes over precipices to the parent Wangapeka. The lake is about 800 feet below the summit of the range, whose frowning cliffs are pleasingly contrasted by grassy slopes and patches of bush while some blue ducks, fishing and diving industriously, gave life to the scene. The formation at this level is still slate, with numerous veins of quartz studded with oxide of iron, detached pieces of which, a foot or two thick, were strewn about. Near this spot I found a piece of copper in quartz, but unfortunately lost the specimen.

From this level I discovered a saddle connecting the Wangapeka with another branch of the Karamea, and which I think is not above 2,600 feet above the sea. Its vegetation consists of lofty birch trees (some being of great size), ferns and most of the ordinary shrubs. The ascent to it by the Wangapeka is very gradual, while, on arriving near the saddle, the rise is very slight, and might be overcome by a gentle gradient. There are about four miles of a gorgy character, with some narrow pieces of table land about thirty or forty feet above the river, divided and occasionally separated by juts of rock, but presenting no practical difficulty. About six miles below this saddle, which is chiefly composed of hard slate similar to the Upper Waimangaroa, there is a space of, perhaps, two miles long, in which occurs the appearance of coal shale, containing the most beautiful fossils of leaves and ferns which I have ever seen. I had not time to look for the accompanying shell formation, nor could I find any seam cropping out, but I found a piece of drift coal about one mile lower down, firmly lodged in the saddle, and of the same character. I had previously ascended to the long high saddle dividing the Matiri and Owen from the Wangapeka, which is situated about five miles up a tributary of the latter. I must below this spot this saddle divides the Owen from the Lyell ranges, and I think it is also the division of the secondary and tertiary coals. The rise to this saddle is steep and short, and no advantage would accrue by following its course to the Buller, whose chief difficulty lies below each somewhere abreast of the Lyell and Brunner ranges.

A few miles down the Karamea, in which interval two small gullies enter, and following a tributary which flows into the Karamea from the southwest, is the saddle watershed of the Lyell, about 3,200 feet in height. The bush rises for, perhaps, 150 feet above the lowest dip, and consists of birch trees, not quite so large as those on the last saddle I have mentioned, with nene, koromiko, flax, heath, toi-toi, &c., and pitch pine, and other shrubs of a similar nature. It is inflammable, and similar to the vegetation which generally exists in Coalbrook Dale. The top stratum is the coarse gritty stone generally exposed on the plateau of Coalbrook Dale and Papahua. I would rather call this a double saddle, with a low hill of similar formation, with little paths every here and there of thin flaky shale, the intervening hollow being filled with the coarse chrystals from the gritty stone above mentioned. Another feature analogous to this coal-field, is that in this hill is a deep cleft, partly descending vertically through the strata, of a beautiful conglomerate of quartz, slate, &c., which I have never before seen at this elevation. It is the conglomerate, only with less quartz and larger pieces of slate, exists in the Buller, about two miles after entering the first gorge. The double saddle may be described as about two miles long, and the best position for crossing it is about the centre, where the saddle is folded over with coal of a good quality [like that of specimens 6 to 9], and much of which may be wrought open-cast. I do not think this seam is more than three feet in thickness, although it appears