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on the Taruarau River, from which on the following day the expedition started for the inner higher part of the mountain region, and from which it returned to Kuripapanga on the 12th February, and to Napier on the 14th February. A prevalence of wet and stormy weather interfered considerably with the work, and in the higher region work was twice interrupted owing to snowstorms which occurred on the 26th January and 7th February. From Owhakao Station the first search for gold was made twelve miles distant in the Upper Taruarau Valley, but without any result. Mr. Yuill as prospector stated that on a former occasion he had obtained prospects in this valley. To me the general character of the wash was not encouraging. The outlines of the valley were such that in an auriferous country gold might be expected, but the high-level terraces were covered or formed of pumice gravel only. No sandstone and slate gravels are found except along the present channels of the river and its tributaries, and this is of a character scarcely favourable for the occurrence of gold. The sandstones are hard and of varying grain up to grit and fine-grained slaty breccia, into which they sometimes pass, and the more argillaceous rocks are almost without exception a dark-coloured slaty shale or mudstone, and show no sign of mineralisation, and quartz is nowhere to be met with, or, at least, is extremely rare. Six miles from the station I found one piece of quartz in the creek-bed of the stream which drains from the westward the range on that side of the Taruarau Valley. About eleven miles up the valley the river flows over a greenish-blue angular breccia consolidated into a hard rock which might possibly be a source of gold, and the terrace on the left bank of the Twelve-mile Creek is formed of similar material—viz., the debris of the older rocks covered slightly with pumice. In the first instance we are dealing with a fan or slope deposit from the adjacent heights on the left bank of the river, in the latter case with the material rushed through the gorge of the creek and deposited in the main valley. It is possible that a colour of gold might be obtained from either of these deposits. Higher up the valley to the source of the main branch of the river there is but little pumice, and the mountain debris brought forward by this and the lesser streams and deposited where favourable areas for lodgment occur, are unpromising in character, and in condition they offer little encouragement to the gold-hunter. The only prospecting done was in the vicinity of the Twelve-mile Creek, and, no gold being obtained, Mr. Yuill declared that even when first prospected but little gold was found. The range to the west was then crossed into the valley of Kaimanawa Creek, and in the meantime I had an opportunity of examining the upper basin of the Ngaruroro. Above the gorge by which the Ngaruroro breaks through the Kaweka Range the valley of the river widens, and two or three creeks from each side of the valley join the main stream. For two and a half to three miles above the gorge the river-valley presents the appearance of having at one time been the bed of a lake, the terraces on each side being nearly horizontal. The upper terraces are fully 100 ft. above the flat through which the river runs. From top to bottom the upper terraces are formed of pumice-drift, fine-grained in the lower part and coarse in the upper part, many blocks of pumice being 2 ft. in length and breadth. These terraces are not such as might be considered favourable for the occurrence of gold in them, and as much of the material has evidently reached its present position by flotation the presence of gold cannot be looked for. The present bed of the river and its immediate banks is formed of sandstone and slate shingle, with a small proportion of acidic volcanic rocks, consisting of porphyritic trachytes, and fluidal rhyolite. I had no means of testing the river-bed for gold ; but I came to the conclusion that payable gold was not likely to occur. I made search over a considerable area of shingle-bed for quartz, but found only one piece of grey flinty quartz of a most unpromising character. Three or four parties of prospectors have examined this upper valley of the Ngaruroro, and none of them have reported more than the finding of a mere colour of gold. I therefore concluded, and I think rightly, that, as far as alluvial gold is concerned, nothing payable will be found; and as respects the occurrence of auriferous reefs in the mountains of the neighbourhood the chances are not great. I saw but two pieces of quartz in this part of the district, one fair-sized piece in Golden Creek (the name is hopeful), and the piece already mentioned as having been observed on the shingle-bed of the Ngaruroro River. On rejoining Mr. Yuill I questioned him as to what prospects had been obtained by him, or his party, from the Ngaruroro Valley, and he asserted that the colour had been found. In the valley of Kaimanawa Creek, the most eastern tributary of the Rangitikei, north of Owhakao Station, some prospecting was carried on over a distance of three miles in the middle part of the valley. Both the pumice, and slate, and sandstone gravels were tried, but not a colour of gold was obtained. From Kaimanawa Creek hut the intervening range was ascended, and followed both north and to the south, and descents thence were made into the valley of Mangamaire Creek, the eastern main branch of the Rangitikei River. The range followed north for five miles brings one abreast of Makorako, the highest peak of the Kaimanawa Mountains, and it was in the bed of the Mangamaire, opposite this mountain, that the best and presumably paying prospects of gold had been found. Lower down the stream where its bed could be reached and tested no gold could be found ; and so every effort was made to reach the locality where Mr. Yuill asserted ten strong colours of gold to the dish of stuff had been found. Some parts of the mountains were impassable for such pack-horses as we had with us, so to reach the Mangamaire at the place indicated the journey had to be done on foot. This was finally done, and after a day's prospecting a few fine colours of gold were found in the sandstone gravels of the creek-bed, and in the crevices of the rock where this was exposed near the water-edge. The total of the gold obtained, had it been the product of one dish of stuff, would not have constituted a paying prospect in a sluicing claim, and fell far short of what I was led to anticipate.

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