A.—3b

12

the most central and best-supplied harbours of rendezvous in the Pacific. The matter had not been long under discussion when the approbation of the Government assumed a practical shape. Elaborate plans prepared upon the ground by a surveyor of the locality intended for settlement were laid before the authorities in Berlin ; a programme of the system of colonization to be initiated was drawn up ; extraordinary powers were delegated to the Consul of Samoa; grants of arms of precision from the Government arsenals were made for the protection of the settlement; and the " Hertha " (the first, it was said, of the Continental ironclads which passed through the Suez Canal) received orders to proceed from China to the Navigator Isles, to settle all outstanding disputes between the Germans and tho chiefs of those islands, and by a judicious display of power to prepare the way for the first detachment of military settlers, who were to take their departure from Hamburg so soon as her commander should have submitted his report. At the same time, arrangements had been made by the Messrs. Godeffroy with their agent in Valparaiso, to ship from thence to Samoa a number of mules and their Chilian drivers, for the purpose of opening a regular communication between the north and south coasts of Upolu over the great central dividing range. Orders were likewise given to the manager of their establishment in Cochin to despatch from thence several Chinese families, who had been for some years at that place in the employment of the firm, in order to commence systematically upon suitable lands in Samoa the cultivation of rice and other oriental products. But the "Hertha" was countermanded in the Indian Sea, upon the declaration of war between France and Germany. The long hostilities which followed, and the ruinous blockade of Hamburg, succeeded by the anti-emigration policy inaugurated by the German Imperial Government, involved the house of Godeffroy in commercial difficulties, upset their wisely-arranged plans, and caused a scheme so pregnant with hopeful promise to be abandoned and forgotten. It seems truly unfortunate that ideas so grand and so certain to bo productive of good, should be permitted to fall to the ground, and it is not too much to hope that sooner or later other equally enterprising capitalists, supported by the influence of an enlightened Government, may take advantage of these suggestions, and carry out to a successful conclusion some similar project to that initiated by those liberal-minded merchants of Hamburg. Godeffroy, sen. (as well as his son) is spoken of as having all his life exhibited a strong attachment to England. One of his vessels is named after Her Majesty, another in honor of the Duke of Edinburgh. He has employed many English, and transacts very much business in their language ; notably all the title deeds and transfers of his lands in Samoa are drawn up in English. One if not more of his sons he caused to reside in England for some years, in order to complete his education. The same also was the ease with Mr. Branker, their present plantation manager. These sentiments of goodwill, so creditable to a Continental merchant, most of whom entertain feelings of jealousy of the commercial advantages our countrymen so generally secure to themselves in foreign lands, may probably operate powerfully to lay the foundation of a good understanding between these enlightened Germans and whatsoever English capitalists may find it to their advantage to carry out upon the Navigator Isles that scheme of settlement which Messrs. Godeffroy were compelled to abandon by reason of commercial reverses, and the veto upon able-bodied emigration pronounced by their new Imperial Government. As concerns minerals upon the Samoan Isles, there have been floating rumours from time to time of gold and other metals being there existent; but I do not believe the islands have ever been examined by any men competent to form a correct opinion. The only man of science of whom I have any knowledge who had visited any portion of the interior of the Samoan group was Dr. E. Graeffe, a very able and learned man, but not a miner or mineralogist; his labours wero confined to the collection of zoological and botanical specimens. His opinion, however, was the same as my own, that upon those islands there is no mineral deposit of any account, except very much magnetic iron, which, in the absence of coal, could be of very little value. Nevertheless, we might have been both wrong. Towards the end of 1873, two residents of Samoa, named Johnson and Bruce, brought to Her Majesty's Consul, who was just then leaving for New Zealand, several specimens of auriferous quartz. In these fragments the gold was very plainly visible. The men professed to have found them in the immediate neighbourhood of Apia. The Consul had no time to investigate the matter before leaving, but gave the information to the Auckland public through tho medium of the newspapers for what it was worth. He had some conversation with me on the subject, in the course of which he expressed grave doubts as to the bond fide character of the discovery. I have had some experience of gold mines, and am better acquainted with the interior of the island of Upolu than most Europeans who have at any time been resident there. I was instructed by the agent of Messrs. Godeffroy to make careful search for any indications of gold or other valuable minerals there. So far from finding any sign of it, I could not even meet with a fragment of quartz larger than microscopic crystals in metamorphic rock and in sand. There are in several places cliffs 100 feet or more in height, composed of micaceous clay, and in other localities there are beds of conglomerate similar to those which overlie gold deposits in Arizona and elsewhere. lam not competent to pronounce a decided opinion; but I believe there is no gold there. Garnets (some of considerable size) are found in the beds of streams, among a highly-magnetic black sand, and a stone resembling an opal exists in the crevices of sandstone rock. It has been stated, upon the authority of Sir Edward Belcher, that upon Eose Island, the most eastern of the Navigator Group, there is a quartz dyke. I have never landed upon Eose Island. It is uninhabited, and produces nothing but beche-de-mer, in no great quantity, according to the account of fishers who have resorted there from Upolu. Sir Edward reports the dyke to be composed of micaceous shale, though from the sea it appears to be of coral formation ; and in coral itself quartz veins cannot by any possibility be found. All coral islands are undoubtedly formed upon a foundation of other rock, but that a quartz dyke should crop out through the coral at this end of a great chain of isles like Samoa, and not be found at all throughout the remainder, would seem mysterious. I have found at various times large pieces of quartz, of the same kind as that in which gold is contained, upon coral islands, particularly upon Manuwae in the Hervey group, and on Suwarrow, neither of which are more than 20 feet above the level of high water; but I accounted for their presence by supposing