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explored carefully and anxiously. The gold said to have been found in Greaves’ Gulley, may have been derived from auriferous veins penetrating sedimentary rocks, or it may have been derived directly from veins intersecting the granite. If I might venture to offer a suggestion, I would say that instead of a hurried examination of a great extent of country, it would be more satisfactory to make a careful examination of a comparatively small area,—say the basin of the flats, the Otaki, or the Manawatu. I would recommend that the upper and lateral branches of these rivers (at some distance from the coast) should be carefully explored, and rough sketch maps made showing the various rock formations,— rough maps which might hereafter be amended, revised, and in some parts wholly altered as discoveries would from time to time, be made. The recent drifts filling the valleys of the small tributaries, should be carefully examined down to the bed rock, and the whole depth of each section washed very carefully. One or two careful examinations of this kind would in fact be the very best kind of "Prospecting." I would suggest just such examinations as Mr. Stutchbury made in New South Wales, and exactly such maps as he constructed.

I do not think explorations very near the coast will be productive of useful results. If we look to the rivers in Victoria we gather some useful hints for the gold prospector. Near the coast the sands of these rivers are almost invariably so poor in gold that they may be said practically to be non-auriferous. For many miles the Yarrowee is non-auriferous, and quite at its sources we have the Ballarat Gold Field. The Coburn and Campaspe flow into the Murray through a pastoral country, but their tributaries, miles away from their embouchures, are now supporting large numbers of gold miners. The Loddon is only auriferous near its sources, and the same may be said of the Hokings, the Wimmera, the Werribee, and every river in the country. A very slight consideration of the facts connected with the occurrence of gold in drifts and recent accumulations will show that the sources of streams, rather than the streams themselves, are most likely to yield the metal in remunerative quantities.

It is probably true that gold is widely disseminated in rocks of the older age, but, according to our present knowledge in such a state of minute subdivision as to be wholly unavailable to the miner. The sludge from a puddling machine contains gold, but the greatest quantity is caught and retained in the box. And so we may consider this operation of nature by which great masses of rock have been worn down and washed as but another kind of puddling, and we must reach the source of that grand agency before we find the gold.

I have not alluded to the modifications likely to be produced in the strata of the drifts and recent tertiaries by glacial action. These should not be overlooked by the gold prospector. Where this force has been exerted gold may be distributed very unequally through the strata, and such rocks may quite puzzle even the experienced gold miner. Though it is true that the specific gravity of gold is sufficient under ordinary circumstances to determine its position on the surface of the bed rock, yet when the gold is imbedded in large fragments of quartz it may be found at all depths from the surface downwards, and in conducting explorations in drifts of this kind all the debris should be carefully examined.

As there are undoubtedly coal-bearing rocks in the Province of Wellington no opportunity should be lost of showing the extent, thickness, dip, and general character of these.

R. BROUGH SMYTH.

Printed under the Authority of the Government of the Province of Wellington, by Thomas McKenzie and James Moon, Printers for the time being for such Government.