1773.
May.
stone and argillaceous slate likewise are seen running in great strata through some of the mountains. The latter is commonly found in great quantity, and broken pieces, on the sea beeches, and is what our seamen call shingle, by which name it is distinguished in the account of captain Cook's former voyage. On these beaches we also met with several sorts of flinty stones and pebbles, and some loose pieces of black, compact, and ponderous basaltes, of which the natives form some of their short clubs, called pattoo-pattoos. In many places we likewise saw strata of a blackish saxum Lin. consisting of a black and compact mica or glimmer, intermixed with minute particles of quartz. The argillaceous slate is sometimes found of a rusty colour, which seems evidently to rise from irony particles; and from this circumstance, and the variety of minerals just enumerated, there is great reason to suppose that this part of New Zeeland contains iron ore, and perhaps several other metallic bodies. Before we left this place, we found some small pieces of a whitish pumice-stone on the sea-shore, which, together with the basaltine lava, strongly confirm the existence of volcanoes in New Zeeland.
Sunday 23.On the 23d in the morning, two small canoes came towards us, in which were five men of the natives, the first we had seen since the arrival of our sloop in this harbour. Their appearance was nearly the same as thatof
