A GEOLOGICAL HOTCH-POTCH.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3250, 13 July 1871, Page 3

A GEOLOGICAL HOTCH-POTCH.

The " Groymouth Star" has the following morceau : — Dr Hector was delivering one of his interesting and able lectures on geology the other day at Grey mouth. Of course in such a place he merged into the subject of gold ; and he explained that " gold was a highly metalliferous substance, which was always found, when not found anywhere else, in quartzose formations traversing palaeozoic laminated schists, near eruptive or igneous oolites, but sometimes aqueous, and in Silurian sedementary accumulations in a depressed state of metamorphosis." After descanting on the peculiarities of the banks of the Grey River, be was about to sit down when a gentleman respectfully asked whether Dr Hector had any theory of his own as to the cause and origin of gold. Passing the palm of his right hand from the left to the right side of his thoughtful brow, the lecturer said he believed he had. He proceeded to say that in the remote antiquity of past ages — in the cycles of revolving centuries, wheu truth had merged into facie, and fable, by the process of algebraical ratiocination, had returned to its original orbit of truth, a report had gained currency of a description of goose which laid golden eggs". If a goose, then why not some other bird ? It was believed by the philosophers and savans, and he believed it also himself, that quartz was nothing else than enormous agglomerations of the feathers (highly crystallised) of birds of a race now extinct. This might be shown by placing a piece of quartz about the size of a water caraffe under a delicate microscope, with a three and threequarter inch object glass, when something as like feathers as anything else might be distinctly noticed. If he might venture a conjecture in the pre- j sence of so enlightened an audience, he j would say that gold was the broken and j dispersed iretalliferised yolks of the ancient moa. He hoped he should not be considered guilty of committing the vulgarity of making a pun, but he asked was there anything moa likely. A gentleman would like to know whether Dr Hector thought the moon bad anything to do with the production of gold. Dr Hector thought not, and instanced the case of the Moonlight, which was altogether a wild conjecture. Another gentlemau thought the origin of gold might be traced to the sun ; but the lecturer could not coincide with this theory, and referred to the Sunrise. The lecturer having asked to be supplied with a glass of whisky, sat down.