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belonged to the Natives, an agreement with the latter on the part of the Government had first to be brought about. The Maoris agreed for a certain payment to cede the acquisition of gold upon their own lands to Europeans; and already, in November, 1852, a treaty was made with the Coromandel chiefs for the term of three years, in which the Government pledged itself to pay the Natives for each square mile of land upon which gold was being dug £1 sterling annually, and for each gold-digger 2s. per month. In consequence of this the Government was, of course, obliged to lay a tax upon the gold-diggers. Granting an exemption for the first two months, it afterwards exacted from each digger £1 10s. per month for a digging license. " About three thousand diggers set to work. On the Kapanga River towards north the Coolahan Diggings promised favourable results, and likewise the Waiau Diggings, a short distance from the former, on the Matawai Greek, a tributary of the "Waiau Eiver, which flows southwards into the Coromandel Harbour. The ore produced was sold in Auckland by public auction. But when the taxes were to be paid there were only about fifty diggers who took licenses. These also, however, were not able to subsist under the heavy taxes demanded ; and as, moreover, nothing at all was heard of any encouraging results on a grand scale, and more and more difficulties arose on the part of the Natives, the whole enterprise died out after about six months. The simple verdict was that the gold-mines were too poor, and the promised reward was withheld from the discoverer. The whole produce upon the first New Zealand goldfield up to the time when the enterprise was given up was computed at £1,200 in gold-value, and the largest nugget found was a spheroidal piece of quartz of the size of an egg, which contained gold equivalent to about £10. " Despite various trials and movements in later years, and although the Natives brought from time to time small quantities of gold to Auckland for sale, no serious trial was ever afterwards made upon the Coromandel Goldfield ; and the Natives at last denied the Europeans even the right to make experiments. " Such was the state of affairs when in June, 1859, I visited the goldfield in company of Mr. Charles Heaphy, the late Gold Commissioner. What the traveller observes on entering Coromandel Harbour and examining its shores does in no way correspond with what a geologist expects of a gold region. The Coromandel Peninsula consists mainly of a mountain ridge, running nearly north and south, the mountains having a bold serrated outline, and varying in height from 1,000 ft. to 1,600 ft. The most noteworthy point is Castle Hill (1,610 ft. high), a rocky peak resembling the ruin of a castle. The valleys between the spurs given off laterally by this main or dividing range are of the character of ravines or gorges, occupied by mere mountain streams; the flats or alluvial tracts at their mouths and on the coast are inconsiderable. The coast consists of nothing but trachytic breccia and tuff, in the most varying colours, and in the most different state of decomposition, from the hardest rock to a soft clayish mass, and in various places broken through by doleritic and basaltic dykes. Siliceous secretions in the shape of chalcedony, carnelion, agate, jasper, and the like, are a very frequent occurrence in these tuff's and conglomerates, likewise large blocks of wood silicified and changed to wood-opal. By local geologists those trachytic rocks were erroneously taken for granite and porphyry, and, by a gross mistake, the most sanguine hopes were based upon the notion that these siliceous secretions might be auriferous quartz veins. "The Coromandel gold originates from quartz reefs of crystalline structure, belonging to a Palaeozoic clay-slate formation, :;: of which under the cover of trachytic tuff and conglomerate the mountain range of Cape Colville Peninsula consists. I The mountains are so densely wooded that it is only here and there in the gorges of the streams that sections of these slates may be examined. In these sections the clay-slates are frequently found to resemble Lydian stone ; they are arranged more or less vertically, their irregular upturned edges affording the most convenient and abundant pocket 3 for the detention and storage of the alluvial gold washed from the higher grounds. The most gold was found in the narrow valleys, where, after digging to a depth of 4 ft. to 5 ft. through boulders and shingle, the bed-rock is struck. Where the valleys extended into broader alluvial plains, there was always but little and very light gold found. "At a small branch of the Kapanga in the vicinity of Coolahan's Diggings, not far from Mr. Ring's mill, at a place pointed out to me by Mr. Heaphy as especially rich, I went to work myself to make an experiment in washing. We dug, partly from, the bed of the small creek, partly from the banks, several shovelfulls of quartz-gravel intermixed with earth and clay, which, after removing the larger pieces, we washed in round tin dishes. The result of the very first trial was a considerable number of extremely fine scales of a light yellowish-green gold, which glistened among the black magnetic ironsand that had remained after the washing process, and some small pieces of ochrey quartz, in which fine scales were seen imbedded. Each successive trial yielded the same result, nor was there a single dishful of ' dirt' that did not show the ' colour,' so that I had to acknowledge to myself that if those deposits of detritus should extend over a larger area, and could be worked on a large scale with the necessary machinery, the result must doubtless be a very remunerative one. But in regard to the former point I had no opportunity to convince myself; and, as to the latter, the Natives would not have consented at that time. The pieces of quartz, among which there were many violet-coloured or amethystine, all being angular fragments, could

* It is now a well-known fact that while gold is not absent from the slate-formation, the great bulk of gold production of the Cape Colville Peninsula lias been obtained from the two older groups of the volcanic series, the Thames and Kapanga groups ; and it is also the general opinion, reasonably held, that the gold is mainly a product of the volcanic rocks, and merely by a process of segregation, as it were, descends into the slate-formation a certain and variable distance. However, at Kuaotunu, on the east side of the Peninsula, the auriferous reefs in the slate country appear to have been formed in the presence of thermal waters, and the gold may have been brought from far beneath any volcanic rock resting on the slate formation. —A. McK. t " The same clay slate formation constitutes the Hunua Range, in the brown-coal district, south of Auckland, near Drury and Papakura, and continues towards south and north to a great distance. It is but very recently (May, 1862) that traces of gold are also said to have been discovered in the Hunua district."