598 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



the forest plateau the air is very moist ; and all the summer, 

 and through the driest seasons, the magnificent Todea S2q)erba 

 fern, which cannot exist without much moisture, lives and 

 thrives in great beauty. There are numerous lagoons, which 

 retain water for a great part of the year, and the facility with 

 which the soft rock can be cut into reservoirs and rendered 

 watertight by means of a thin skimming of cement will cause 

 the water difficulty to be of very little account in the settle- 

 ment of the land. 



The whole country bears evidence of the action of water in 

 a remarkable degree. The numerous and deep ravines which 

 have been cut out of the solid rock can only be the result of 

 enormous floods of w^ater laden with sand. Many shallow 

 and dry channels exist, filled with large waterworn boulders. 

 Dry aiuaawas are more sparingly found than in the low open 

 lands, but they are otherwise very similar, and without a 

 trace of running water in their beds. In the great Te Toto 

 Eavine, leading eastwards from Kaponga, a dyke of hard 

 rhyolite is seen standing up and crossing the valley like a 

 natural bridge. It is pierced with a waterway 8ft. or 10ft. 

 high, and a deep hole below, always full of water. But water 

 is never seen flowing through it now ; and what the condition 

 of the country could have been when that ravine was scooped 

 out, and the hard dyke pierced, is not easy to describe. All 

 over the plateau also are to be found isolated rocks, rearing 

 their storm-beaten pinnacles 30ft. or 50ft. above the surface, 

 the remains of masses which have resisted the grinding and 

 denuding process which levelled the plateau and carved out 

 the ravines as the country yielded, probably gradually, to the 

 upheaving forces. The strata of yellow^ pumice-gravel and 

 surface-soil, being conformable to the rock, are no doubt due 

 to subaerial deposits made after the erosive action of water 

 had ceased ; and very little change has taken place since then, 

 other than the forest growth, of which there is evidence of 

 more than one generation. 



Up to the time of commencing the railway survey very 

 little was known of the interior of the plateau beyond the 

 Kaharoa Track, traversed by the intended road. Two other 

 native tracks existed — one from Kokako to Ngongotaha, and 

 another from Te Whetu to the Utuhina Valley. The surveys 

 for the land-claims had included lines run through the forest 

 in some places, and the great " Eohe-Potae " of the Whaite 

 Kuranui Claim had just been cut ; but information derived 

 from those engaged in that work was of the mistiest, principally 

 owing to their want of knowledge of the great height of the 

 table-land. The writer's road explorations in the forest and 

 open lands of Patetere supplied a good foundation on which 

 to work. It is not necessary to describe in detail the opera- 



