Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/116

88 The aspiring tourist, reaching the summit of Mount Rochfort, a feat in mountain climbing which we may hope ere long to find, and often, among the records of the Alpine Club, where it will well compare, if not in difficulties of progress and perils by the way, with adventures among European crags and peaks, at least in story of wide expanse,

will gaze on the magnificent prospects attained, with mingled feelings of awe, reverence, and delight. In front of him the Pacific Ocean, a wide expanse of azure blue, its white downlike fringe of breakers lapping a hundred little bays and sandy stretches, looking in the distance like plains of deadened silver, environed landward with masses of sombre forestry, gradually uprising tier upon tier in wooded terrace and rugged acclivity until the bare mountain sides are reached. Northward he will see a series of bold headlands stretching far into the sea, intervallied by deep river courses, and backed up by snow-clad mountain giants. In nearer proximity in a southern direction, “still so near and yet so far,” will be seen the Buller River, the township, and environs at its mouth dwarfed to a mere patch of pigmy dwellings and streaks of emerald verdure, ever in seeming peril of annihilation by the angry sea gods. The course of the river amid its mountain environments may be traced for miles. The immediate circumvallation of Mount Rochfort reveals a mass of broken granitic formation, deep ravines and precipices, mountain slips and wooded hills, extending from the timbered margined sea beach and swampy pahikis beyond, in broken confusion, until the snowy mountain tops are reached—Dame Nature’s fortresses, wherein lie stores of mineral wealth, gold, and coal in abundance. It may interest the geologist if we here quote a portion of the report made by Julius Haast in 1861, who, at the request of the Nelson Provincial Government, made a topographical and geological exploration throughout what was then described as the Western Districts of the Nelson Province, at that time nearly a terra incognita save for the flying surveys made by Messrs Heaphy, Brunner, Rochfort, and Mackay, to whose labours in the cause of scientific research and exploration we have already referred. We may premise also our extract from Julius Haast’s report by the statement that since 1861, a vast extent of coal seams has been traced and defined on the Mount Rochfort coal-fields, exceeding apparently all his expectations of probabilities or possibilities. Still the ever during hills are there, as they have been, and will be, from generation to generation, the same to-day as twenty years ago; and to the geologist who finds delight in scaling the rugged cliff, or burrowing in the bowels of the earth, hammer and satchel in hand, to gather chips whereon to build up new records of the world’s history, the following extracts may prove interesting:—“Syenitic granite of an even structure, through which porphyritic granite protrudes in large veins, with occasional greenstone dikes, extends north of the Buller into the Papahaua range, forming hills of 500 to 1000 ft. high, and ceasing in the centre of the chain. On both its sides, uniting in the centre, lie the coal bearing strata, striking at Mount Rochfort, regularly east and west, with a dip of five degrees