and kept supplied at great expense and must be prepared for very deep sinking, and as yet there is no road.

With regard to the Manawatu, although old drifts may lie beneath the territories on its banks, and may eventually be worth sinking for, if we find any reasons to warrant the outlay, the river itself is most unlikely for gold. It presents the curious feature of rising in the territories of the East Coast, bursting through the main range and thence again passing through territories to the sea. The whole course of the river through the ancient rocks does not exceed seven miles and its stream there occupies the whole breadth of the channel.

Immediate explorations of the Hutt, the Waikanae, and the Otaki, with the Eastern Rivers previously named, I particularly concur in, for reasons which I shall presently show.

This brings me to the main point of my argument, which is, if gold exists where is it to be found, as drift and alluvial gold?

I have endeavoured to show the character of the mountain range and from this it will be seen that in general the rivers while confined to the range, run in very narrow and perpendicular channels. After entering the mountains and ascending for a few miles the beds of the streams, the ascent is rapid in the extreme, the drift disappears and the waters rush over a rocky bottom, or over large boulders of the surrounding rocks, and therefore drift gold, if present, could only be worked for a comparatively short distance up the mountain beds of those rivers.

Old drift gravels and clays may certainly be found in various places on the hills, as on the Mungaroa hill to a height of between 700 and 800 feet, but in general the rock is covered by a thin stratum of soil only, and where that is the case of course there are no diggings.

If we then consider the great denudation which has removed the rock from these valleys, say in the glacial epoch, we may ask where has the material gone to? The answer is obvious. It does not lie, or only to a small extent, within the hills, but has been swept into the Wairarapa country on the East, into the basin between Kapiti and the main range, on the West; and into the Hutt Valley on the S.S.W.

If these rocks contained gold, most, if not all of it would follow the same route. I therefore would suggest that in a search for drift gold attention should first be directed to a careful examination of the Valley of the Hutt; and also, what I have already hinted at, that the question of grappling with deep sinking in the Wairarapa and perhaps also on the West Coast should be considered, combined with an investigation of the river beds previously mentioned as far as practicable.

As Mr. Brough Smyth also suggests that gold may be looked for in unexpected formations, I would not omit the blue clay. Although it is a fossiliferous rock it has a great appearance of being a drift formation, and I submit the following theory of its deposit, say to the Eastward of the Rimutaka and Tararua.

Suppose great degradation going on in the glacial epoch, along the Eastern valleys of these ranges and the materials carried to the Wairarapa—what would be the natural order of deposition? Why, that the heavier boulders would be left in the vicinity of the range, while the lighter particles of earth, clay and sand would be carried to a greater distance. As a consequence one may expect both deposits to be, in places near the line of demarcation, mixed together; and as the lighter materials would be soonest exhausted, a deposit of gravel would latterly form over the clay. All this is carried out as far as I can get speak. I have not as yet been able to find the blue clay to the Westward of the Ruamahunga, and the other conditions are found towards, and to the Eastward of, that river. The elevated beds of gravel and blue clay, lying still farther to the Eastward, might not at that time have been upheaved by the force along the axis of elevation of the East Coast. Now, if the denuded rocks were gold bearing, most of the gold would be deposited, with the heavy gravel, near the mountains, but lighter particles might accompany the blue clay to a greater distance.

On the other hand the gravel and the blue clay may mark different, although consecutive periods.

The gold question will not be set at rest until the Wairarapa and the West coast plains are bottomed at several points.

Now that I have acquired a general knowledge of the rocks of the Province, I quite agree with Mr. Brough Smyth, that my attention should be directed to a minute investigation of some limited district. What I should now propose, with regard to the Geological Survey and apart from a search for gold, would be to make a detailed survey of the rocks of this range from East to West, mapping them and collecting specimens of every stratum.