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Tararua ranges and therefore, if gold be
found at one point, the inference is that
it may be expected in others. The same
rocks, or some of them, may be seen near
the Printer’s Flat in Makara; at various
points between Makara and Ohariu;
haranga and Pitone; on the Rimutaka
road; and elsewhere. One schistose
rock, which I have not previously ob-
served, is exposed in the cutting of the
South Makara road, it appears to lie near
the top of the series and looks a likely
rock to search for fossils.

As a general rule the lower the bed of
rock and the nearer to the surface, the
more the rocks seem to be metamorphic,
crystalline, traversed by veins of quartz,
slightly transfluous with gold. It would
be as if the force of the plaitons beneath
had been sufficient to act so far, but not to
force themselves to the surface.

It is evident that the semi-metamor-
phic rocks here constitute the pre-
range of the Island; and which we
must be content to call greywacke until
the discovery of fossils shall enable us
assign to it a definite geological age. Does
contain some gold. Gold is found
at Tararu in the Thames district in
various other quarters, and therefore,
after all, it may be an auriferous range—
discovery also may soon show that it
answers Sir Roderick Murchison’s de-
scription of gold-countries, viz., abun-
dant greenstone-up by-granites, porphy-
ries, etc. Of gneissoses, inasmuch as I have found
the eruptive rocks in the East Coast
country, and I hope before long to find
them in the main range itself; added to
this we find serpentine in many parts of
the range, and although few, if any, well
defined quartz reefs or lodes are found,
yet irregular veins of quartz, large and
small, are very common. On the other
hand, the quantities of gold yet found are
small.

In considering the geological aspect
of the district, one enquires where is the
most likely place to look for gold in
quantity, and one naturally turns to the
enormous development of “drift”
gravel on both sides of the range, and in
some of the valleys within it. After ob-
servation here and in the Middle Island,
and only considering the inadequacy of
any other force to produce the effect, I
am bound to suppose the existence of
huge glaciers, in every valley of our main
range, during the glacial era, and at a
time when the plains were submerged
and the mountains stood as islands in
the ocean. The moraines, the floating
ice islands depositing their loads as they
melted, have doubtless formed the mass
of drift which lies horizontally on the
West Coast from Waikanae to Rangitikei
and forms an immense mantle spread
over the gravel regularly and evenly. The
drift comes to the surface at Otaki and
Rangitikei and probably underlies the al-
luvium and the sand-hills at the Manawatu,
the lower part of the Rangitikei and else-
where. It will be found in small and ir-
regular quantities in the different narrow
valleys, including those of Waikanae and
the Kaiwarra stream, but denuded in places
of deposition of the streams. The Upper
Hutt and Pakuratahi valleys have their
patches of drift, and probably in the
former Hutt it will be found below the
alluvium of the river; and in the Waira-
rapa this deposit is of immense extent
and uncertain depth. It will be necessary
to discriminate between the gravel of the
drift and that which underlies the Terri-
tory formation.

It rests on the greywacke rocks, on Mr.
Elworthy’s run, where crossing the Eus-
denburgh, the latter is seen resting on
a sloping shelf. At the glacisat epoch,
when the present low mountains were
filled with ice, it is natural to suppose
that the summits of the mountains were
covered with snow, and I should therefore
attribute the apparent alluvia of Kaikora,
Porirua road, and other table lands of the
main range to drift from melting snow.

There appears to be this difference be-
tween the drift of New Zealand and that
of Europe, that in the former we have
not yet found those large blocks of granite
and other rocks, transported from their
original locality for great distances, some-
times hundreds of miles; and of both
the granite boulders used for building
purposes in St. Petersburg, and one of
which forms the pedestal of the statue of
Peter the Great, are good examples.

Considering therefore the enormous
degeneration and wearing away of rock,
equal to the work of any number of quartz
crushing machines, which is indicated by
the drift of this district; it is evident that
if the rocks noted upon contained any
gold, that gold must be looked for at the bot-
tom of the drift. From its specific gravity it
would be sure to find its way down, until
it found the bed rock to rest upon. For
these reasons I would suggest that it
is desirable that the drift should be
bottomed in various places, to ascer-