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20

Sir James continues thus: "I never felt altogether satisfied with the explanation that attributes the origin of the gold to ordinary drift gravels, and have visited this goldfield on many occasions during the last twenty years with a feeling of surprise that such enormously rich finds should have been made in the early days, and that they should not have been followed up, as in other gold-mining districts, by more permanent, though perhaps less rich, discoveries. Want of concentrated energy and capital in order to secure a sufficient water-supply to enable the modern methods of mining to be adopted, has seemed to me the chief difficulty, and it was with great interest that 1 lately took an opportunity of re-examining a property there on behalf of the Parapara Sluicing Company, which seems to be the first effort that has been conceived on the right method of working for the proper development of the district. . . . Gold was also washed out of the sands on the sea-beach at the mouth of the [Parapara] river, and along the coast to the eastward ; also in the bed of the river as far up as the first gorge, about a mile from the tidal water. At one time there was a considerable mining population in this district, but, owing to the difficulty of procuring a sufficient water-supply for sluicing the gravels, the miners gradually abandoned the place. From the first gorge the gold seemed to leave the Parapara River and follow a line to the southwest, crossing a succession of low saddles that divide the waters of various streams, and intersecting the richest diggings, such as Glenmutchkin, Glengyle, Appo's Creek, Richmond Hill, Golden Gully, and Rocky River. It was at Golden Gully that the first important discovery was made, and, from report, the richness of the claims was most remarkable. The sinking was only sft. deep, and I find the area worked was only about 50,000 square yards. This gives about a hundred thousand loads. From this area, in a few months, 40,0000z. of gold were obtained and sold on the ground to storekeepers, or at the rate of nearly £oz. to the load. Patches of the ground were, however, so rich that the yield was frequently loz. of gold from a single dish of stuff; and yet only a portion of the gold was secured, as the tailings have been worked over and over again, and a few miners are still so employed. The gold, in this instance, was obtained from a thin layer of loose quartz-gravel resting on the denuded surface of soft slate rock ; but along the east side of the shallow diggings deep ground was discovered, and at the head of Blue Creek* a shaft 120 ft. deep was sunk in a very compact, coarse conglomerate without reaching any bed-rock. Gold was found in every part of the conglomerate taken out, but, on failing to find a definite lead, the work was abandoned. The workings in Appo's Gully also throw light on the peculiar distribution of those auriferous gravels. In its upper part, the creek follows a line of deep ground, but crosses it obliquely, so that towards the Richmond Hill Saddle the lead has been smothered by heavy landslips from the eastern side of the valley. Lower down, where the richest surface-workings were situated, deep ground was discovered, and a shaft was sunk by Messrs. Travers and Washbourne ; but, so I am informed, this prospecting work was also abandoned at a depth of 140 ft. without any gutter or lead being found, or any change being encountered in the nature of the material. The gold-bearing lead continues to follow a bearing of N. 40° E. over the saddle which separates the Hit-or-Miss Claim from Glengyle Creek ; and, just above the junction of the latter creek with the Parapara River, a third trial-shaft was put down in cement ground from the river-level to a considerable depth, and this shaft also failed to disclose any change or limit in depth for the deposit. It thus appears probable that we have to deal with a more or less vertical stratum of auriferous gravel or cement which follows a fault-line —which, for convenience, I may term a main slide—that is independent of the present contour of the country, and that we have also to deal with secondary and concentrated gravels derived from this main-slide cement. This view is supported by the following well ascertained facts : (1) Streams which intersect the line of the main slide are auriferous only in that part of their course which is below the intersection—such, for instance, as the Parapara River, Appo's Creek, Lightband's Creek, Golden Gully, Sailor's, and Blue Creeks, Slate River, and its tributary Rocky River ; . . . (2) smaller streams which intersect the terrace-gravels in lines parallel with the above, but rise short of the intersection of the main slide, are not auriferous; (3) there are several auriferous reefs in the district now being worked by Johnstone's United Company which yield gold of a different chemical quality from that in the main-slide cement, the latter being extremely pure and bright, while the former is tarnished by contact with arsenical pyrites and other metallic sulphides Now, the area where these reefs crop out at the surface is isolated from the main-slide gravel, and within this area—as, for instance, Bedstead Gully and Coles's Creek—all the alluvial gold, of which a considerable amount was obtained in the early days, had a characteristic greenish tarnish and a garlic odour on being heated, which proved its local origin from these reefs, and thus accounts for its presence under circumstances that precluded its having been derived from the main slide."| Having knowledge of the particular views of the workers who have preceded me in this field, naturally my work had direction as to many things which otherwise might have been overlooked; but more especially were the evidences bearing on the origin and history of the gravels involved along the line of fault on the south-east side of the Aorere Valley considered, and the relation of these to the Cretaceo-tertiary or older Tertiary strata on the same side of the valley. Witli the views of Yon Hochstetter and Cox I cannot but disagree, and in part also with those expressed by Mr. Park. With the views of Sir James Hector those to be here put forward are much more in accord, and differ seriously in one or two particulars only : First, with reference to the source of the gold found in the main slide ; and, second, with respect to the absence of gold in the upper valleys of such streams as cut through the main slide and take their rise from the south-east water-divide. The gravels of the upper Slate River and its tributaries, Snow's and Rocky Rivers, are well known to be gold-bearing in parts where their auriferous contents could not have been supplied from the drifts involved along the line of fracture running from the mouth of the Parapara River to the

* This is the same locality that has already been mentioned as the head of Golden Gully .f " Geological Reports," 1890-91, Progress Report, pp. x-xv.