had no tin dish, neither did we know how to wash. The specks we found
were mica; but I believe I am right in saying that there are large
quantities of chromate of iron in the ranges that descend upon the
river. We brought down several specimens, some of which we believed to
be copper, but which did not turn out to be so. The principal rocks
were a hard, grey, gritty sandstone, interwoven with thin streaks of
quartz. We saw no masses of quartz; what we found was intermixed with
sandstone, and was always in small pieces. The sandstone, in like
manner, was almost always intermingled with quartz. Besides this
sandstone there was a good deal of pink and blue slate, the pink chiefly
at the top of the range, showing a beautiful colour from the river-bed.
In addition to this, there were abundance of rocks, of every gradation
between sandstone and slate--some sandstone almost slate, some slate
almost sandstone. There was also a good deal of pudding-stone; but the
bulk of the rock was this very hard, very flinty sandstone. You know I
am no geologist. I will undertake, however, to say positively that we
did not see one atom of granite; all the mountains that I have yet seen
are either volcanic or composed of this sandstone and slate.

When we had reached nearly the base of the mountains, we left our
horses, for we could use them no longer, and, crossing and recrossing
the stream, at length turned up through the bush to our right. This
bush, though very beautiful to look at, is composed of nothing but the
poorest black birch. We had no difficulty in getting through it, for it
had no undergrowth, as the bushes on the front ranges have. I should
suppose we were here between three and four thousand feet above the
level of the sea; and you may imagine that at that altitude, in a valley
surrounded by snowy ranges, vegetation would not be very luxuriant.
There was sufficient wood, however, to harbour abundance of parroquets--
brilliant little glossy green fellows, that shot past you now and again