Numb. 13.
181

SUPPLEMENT
TO THE
NEW ZEALAND
GAZETTE
OF THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1878.
Published by Authority.

WELLINGTON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1878.

Report on the Golden Point Quartz Reef, Queen
Charlotte Sound.

Colonial Museum of New Zealand,
Wellington, 2nd February, 1878.

SIR,—Some rich specimens of auriferous quartz
having lately been exhibited in Wellington, from
near Picton, at the request of the prospectors I
examined the locality where they were obtained, on
the 16th January, and have the honor to furnish you
with a report of my observations.

The mine, which has been named "The Golden
Point," is situated on the west side of Queen Char-
lotte Sound, five miles below Picton, and three miles
short of the western entrance to Tory Channel. The
promontory is marked on the Admiralty Chart as
Price's Point, and forms the northern headland of
Powerful Bay, one of the numerous indentations of
the shore line, and in the entrance to which lies
Negara Island.

Under the shelter of the point, within the bay, are
the peach groves and cultivations of the deserted
Maori settlement of Kaipapa, where there is a small
extent of available land, but elsewhere the country
consists of narrow rocky ridges with steep sides
covered with scrub to the water's edge.

The locality of the mine was reached from Picton
by boat, but the steamers pass close to it, and there
is safe anchorage for vessels of any size in the bay.

GEOLOGICAL FORMATION.

The prevailing formation along the west side of
the Sound is mica-schist and clay slate, both meta-
morphic rocks that are impregnated with quartz in
irregular veins and laminæ. These metamorphic
rocks are similar to the schists of the Otago Gold
Fields, and form a narrow belt that extends from
Cape Jackson, S.W., to the Wairau River.

Indications of the existence of gold have been
found in various parts of this area. Thus, near Cape
Jackson, at the Turner Mine, several reefs were
formerly worked, and many rich specimens obtained.

Quartz collected by myself from this reef in 1872,
without visible gold, yielded as high as 3 oz. 6 dwt.
per ton. (Geol. Reports, 1872, p. 129.)

Also on the Onamarutu Creek, a tributary of the
Wairau River, which flows through the same schists,
alluvial gold was extensively mined during 1869–70,
followed by the discovery of the Sutherland reef on
the western borders of the formation. This reef
yielded by analysis about 1 oz. per ton, but it never
received a fair trial, and was abandoned, after the
erection of expensive machinery, before the mine was
thoroughly explored. (l.c., p. 122.)

The Golden Point reef occurs under similar geo-
logical conditions to both the foregoing.

The rock is a fine-grained mica-schist of a dark
grey colour, with thin laminæ of quartz; the foliation
planes having a strike of N. 15° E., and an average
dip of 40° to the westward. The rock is intersected
by vertical joints in the manner usual in mica-schists,
but there is very little contortion of the foliation
planes.

Besides the thin laminæ, quartz occurs in veins or
leaders that traverse the rock mass in an irregular
manner, expanding and contracting from a few inches
to nearly two feet of thickness in some parts.

At least six of these leaders are exposed within a
distance of 60 feet in the face of the sea-cliff where
the mine is situated (as shown in the enclosed sketch
A), and about the same number have been met with
in the underground workings, but as far as yet fol-
lowed they do not appear to form into a well-defined
lode or reef.

Cutting across these leaders and displacing them,
vertical faults are seen in the sea-cliff, and in the
workings one of them is marked by a thin cross course
or vein of banded quartz, carrying water. The
direction of these faults is about N. 40° W.; and in
the same line round the point on the beach below
the Maori garden there is a wide vein of blue mullock
or tenacious clay full of kernels of white quartz and
minute crystals of pyrites. Further on and still in
the same line on the hill above, blocks of cherty iron-