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hereby in pursuance and exercise of the powers delegated to me by His Excellency the Governor of New Zealand, under and by virtue of the "Gold Fields Act, 1858-60," appoint

JOHN SMITH HICKSON, Esquire,

to be a Warden and Judge of all Wardens’ Courts now or hereafter to be constituted within the Gold Fields of the Province of Otago, with power to him to act alone or with Assessors or Juries, and in such manner and to exercise all or any of the powers in the "Gold Fields Act, 1858-60" mentioned, but declaring that such appointment shall be deemed to be provisional only until the same shall have been confirmed and allowed by the Governor.

Given under my hand at Dunedin, and issued under the Public Seal of the said Province, the eleventh day of June, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three.

JOHN HYDE HARRIS,
Superintendent.

By His Honor’s command,

ALEX. WILLIS,
Acting Provincial Secretary.

EXPLORATION OF THE WEST COAST.

THE following communication from Dr. Hector to his Honor the Superintendent, is published for general information :-

Geological Survey, Otago, N.Z.,
Schooner "Matilda Hayes,"
Riverton, 8th June, 1863.

DEAR SIR,—I have the honor to inform you that having succeeded in engaging the services of a native crew to accompany me to the West Coast in a large sealing boat, and also a native pilot, well acquainted with the sounds and harbours there, who will remain in the schooner, I am now only waiting for the first favourable opportunity to continue my voyage from this port.

I landed at the Bluff on the 25th, and reached this place by way of Invercargill on the 28th ult., the schooner arriving on the same day, having been wind-bound a much shorter time than was anticipated. Finding that the Maoris were absent at Stuart’s Island, procuring their annual stock of mutton birds, but were expected to return in a few days, I gladly availed myself of a kind offer made by Mr. Francis, of Manipora, to accompany me on an excursion to the limestone caves on the Waiau River, which forms the western boundary of the Province of Southland. This very interesting trip, which we extended to the Mareroa River, occupied seven days, and enabled me to complete my cursory examination of the country from the district I visited in April last, lying to the west of Wakatipu Lake, southwards to this coast.

The limestone caves, which present no features of peculiar interest, occur in a stratum of impure fossiliferous limestone of tertiary age, exactly the same as that which prevails at Oamaru, and the true equivalent of the Caversham sandstone, which is so plentiful around Dunedin.

These strata cross the Waiau Valley at right angles, with a dip or inclination to the north. The caves on the right or western side of the river are merely natural excavations of the softer portion of the strata, the hard ledges remaining as overhanging eaves, and, from a few fragments of human bones found by Mr. Aitkin, they appear to have been resorted to by the Maoris. Those on the opposite side of the river are crooked fissures that ramify often for several hundred yards through the limestone rock, but nowhere having sufficient width or altitude of roof to entitle them to the appellation of caverns or grottos, although in some of them there are very pretty groups of stalactites depending from the roof, composed of semi-translucent calcspars. The limestone, with its characteristic fossils, is largely developed in Southland, skirting the Longwood range of hills and the south flank of the Takitimo Mountains, and thence passing under the plains to the east, to re-appear in the Moonlight Ranges; and it is probable that it extends over a considerable area to the west of the Waiau River. The remainder of the country passed over, is occupied principally by the older group of tertiary strata, consisting of sandstones, shales, and conglomerates, inclined at high angles in the neighborhood of the Takitimo Mountains, which I judge at a distance, to consist of slate rocks, with probably an exposure of hornblendic gneiss, like that composing the Bluff, along their south-western base.

The structure of the whole country is, however, masked by great development of terrace materials to the height of 2,000 feet above the sea, indicating the great extent which was once attained by the Lake system, which is still represented by the Manipora and Te Anau Lakes, and which I have reason to believe at one time included the basin of the Wakatipu Lake. I observed no country in the course of this trip which is likely to prove auriferous; the schistose rocks only rarely appearing through the disturbed tertiary formations, and then having the same trappan and gneissoid character that distinguishes the non-auriferous strata to the west of Wakatipu Lake. On the north flank of Mount Hamilton—where I was told that prospectors had been at work—I found that a blue clay shale with veins of carbonate of