C.—9

7

success. Apparently, much the best indications are to be observed on Waitangi Hill, which forms a prominent point on the ridge between these two streams. Here a number of springs, forming pools, which are heavily coated with crude petroleum, ooze out along the banks of a small stream. Parapara Work started. About the middle of October I left Wellington to undertake the detailed survey of the Parapara subdivision of Karamea, Nelson. A few days were spent in the Town of Nelson obtaining some data necessary for the conduct of the work from the Lands and Survey Office. Parapara was reached on the 20th October, and a central camp pitched on the Parapara Inlet. Operations are still proceeding in the Parapara subdivision at the close of the year. As it is hoped to publish a bulletin in considerable detail on the geology of the Parapara subdivision during next session, a full report is not required here, especially as our investigations are at present not well advanced. Physiography. The Parapara subdivision contains the Survey Districts of Aorere and Waitapu, which together represent an area of about 230 square miles. The only considerable settlement within the subdivision is the Township of Takaka, in the valley of the same name. By far the greatest area consists of densely forested country, quite without settlement. Much of the subdivision is hilly, and some of it may be dignified as mountainous. The most prominent elevations are Parapara Peak, 4,098 ft.; Mount Hardy, 4,926 ft.; and Lead Hill, 5,281 ft. Low-lying flats are limited to the flood plains of the various rivers, more especially of the Aorere and of the Takaka, and to the incipient coastal plains formed along the sea-shore, usually where the streams debouch into the ocean. The most conspicuous feature of the subdivision is the broad ancient valley of the Aorere, incised deeply by the modern stream. Fluviatile erosion of the ancient valley has given the many decided terraces which flank the present course of the river, and the flood plains which form the fertile grazing-lands near the Rockville Settlement. General Geology. The oldest rocks in the district are a series of highly metamorphosed schists, epidote rocks, quartzites, phyllites, and complex carbonates, and of less metamorphosed grauwackes and argillites. Some of the latter are highly carbonaceous, and contain graptolites which fix their age as Ordovician. At the present stage of our investigations it is uncertain whether the highly metamorphic schists, quartzites, phyllites, and complex carbonates are coeval with the less metamorphic grauwackes and argillites, but later on it is hoped to investigate these points and many others. Above these ancient strata lies a later series of beds of conglomerate breccias, argillites (generally highly ferruginous), epidotic or serpentinous agglomerates, and sills of serpentine rocks, generally much altered. This series has been classified by the earlier geologists as Devonian. Lying unconformably on these so-called Devonian rocks, and occurring at many widely separated parts of the subdivision, is a series of shales, sandstones, conglomerates, limestones, and marly clays, in the lower members of which coal-seams occur. From fossils obtained at various horizons in this series, it is apparently of Middle Tertiary age. Overlying these Tertiary rocks are terraced river gravels, sands, and clays of Pleistocene and later age. The sills of serpentine rock mentioned as occurring in the so-called Devonian strata represent a phase of eruptive somewhat widely distributed in the oldest rocks as well. These originally were probably all either dunite or some form of peridotite, but are now almost all greatly serpentinised or talcosed. Acid eruptives, consisting of granite, syenite, feldspar, porphyry, &c.,are of widely distributed exposure in the subdivision, but occur chiefly in the southern part, where they form the massif of Lead Hill, and in the adjoining area to the southwestward beyond the limits of the Parapara subdivision. Economic Geology. Iron-ore. —Economic and popular interest in the Parapara subdivision centres around the enormous deposit of iron-ore which appears on the surface near Parapara Inlet, and brokenly extends southward for seven miles and a half, with a maximum width of about 26 chains. The main exposures of the ore appear between Washbourn's paint-mill and the saddle between Washbourn Creek and the Tukurua River, an area known as the Washbourn Block ; between the Tukurua and the Onakaka River, known as the Tukurua Block ; and southward from the Onakaka towards the Pariwhakaoho River, known as the Onakaka Block. The exact nature of this huge ore-body is too large a problem to enter into here, as it will be discussed in great detail in the forthcoming bulletin on the Parapara subdivision. In general, however, it may be said that the ore of highest quality is in the Washbourn Block, and that it depreciates passing southward. In the Washbourn Block the ore consists chiefly of a high-grade limonite. In places it contains unimportant impurities, such as fragments of quartz, which were in the original rock, by the replacement of which the ore has been formed. Along the watercourses, and in rare places also on the surface, the disintegrated ore, after comminution, has become so mixed with pebbles and cobbles of extraneous material as to form a ferruginous conglomerate of little value. The ore is inclined to be micaceous and siliceous in both the Tukurua and Onakaka Blocks. Quartz Veins. —Quartz veins occur, widely separated, throughout the Palseozoic strata (Ordovician and so-called Devonian). Most of these are apparently valueless, but' at the time of writing by far the greatest number have not been fully tested. The Golden Blocks Mine and the Golden Ridge Mine, both occurring within the boundaries of the subdivision, are being worked on auriferous quartz veins situated in undoubted Ordovician strata Gold-bearing veins have been reported from the head of Snows River, near the southern edge of the subdivision, where they are