第18章 CHAPTER IV(6)

All the time we kept looking for gold,not in a scientific manner,but we had a kind of idea that if we looked in the shingly beds of the numerous tributaries to the Harpur,we should surely find either gold or copper or something good.So at every shingle-bed we came to (and every little tributary had a great shingle-bed)we lay down and gazed into the pebbles with all our eyes.We found plenty of stones with yellow specks in them,but none of that rich goodly hue which makes a man certain that what he has found is gold.We did not wash any of the gravel,for we 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 Iam 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 with a glisten in the sun,and were gone.There was a kind of dusky brownish-green parrot,too,which the scientific call a Nestor.What they mean by this name I know not.To the un-scientific it is a rather dirty-looking bird,with some bright red feathers under its wings.It is very tame,sits still to be petted,and screams like a real parrot.

Two attended us on our ascent after leaving the bush.We threw many stones at them,and it was not their fault that they escaped unhurt.

Immediately on emerging from the bush we found all vegetation at an end.