GEOLSGICAL SURVEY

West Coast Times, Issue 10536, 21 July 1897, Page 3

GEOLSGICAL SURVEY

Mr M'&ay, the Government geologist, has (says a correspondent) taken possersion of the lower press room in Parliamsnt Buildings to assort, classify, and record the results of his recent explorations of the gold-bearing areas in the Cape Colville district. The classification will show the nature of the rocks within the gold-bearing area, and enable those interested to know whether, when rocks may have materially changed^ there has been prospecting there and to what extent the prospect niay frave resulted in finding payable gold. It will also show the nature- of the change and the yield of gold, whether ie may be attributable to such change. Hitherto the Thames ' rocks and those all over the Cape Colville district have been called " sandstones " by the miners. They are the same as are called by Mr Park, of the School of Mines " propilyte." The rocks at Coromandel are similar, although not exactly identical. The same is the ca c c further south at Waitekauri, Waihi, and Te Aro!:a. During the past two years sthe revival of the gold industry has led to prospecting over the entire peninsula, and consequently other rocks than those present In the above-named localities, and in most kinds of rock formation gold has been found. Of course the largest results here proceeded from the goldproducing rocks in the places above named. The rocks charge greatly from the west to the east Fide of the peninsula. Between the main watershed of the divide and the east side south of Mercury Bay the rockis met with a,re of a light grey color. This feature predominates, but they are not in all cases the same, and the miner might easily mistake some of them for the sandstone or decomposed rock of the western side of the peninsula, but in truth they are very different. Mafiiy of them are highly acidic rocks, thtf chief characteristic of which is *• rhyalite:" They look very often like ain^tone. Gold is not necessarily absent from the rocks on that side or from acidic rocks generally, but it cannot be found in paying quantities. In such places as Broken Hill, Tairoa, Neesville, Waitekauri, and other places there aie See Fourth Page.

areas of acidic rock which givo good promise in the future of yielding gold in payable qcantity. Silver occurs variably in most place?— as, for example, in the Cabbage Bay and Hikutaia district*. Manganese and other minerals are rarely met with. The specimens which Mr M'Kay has collected will be giound down showing the structure, color and character of the stone, and some of them will be photographed for the purpose of easy reference and distribution. They will, of course, be part of the record of the geological survey of the Capo Colville district.