Pond and Smith. — On the Eruption of Mt. Tarawera. 853 



described as severe, (as they no doubt appeared to those who 

 experienced them,) they cannot really be so classed when it is 

 taken into consideration that no chimneys fell, nor were light 

 articles, such as bottles, vases, etc., cast down from shelves, 

 except in one or two instances. No one who experienced the 

 heavy earthquakes of 1848 or 1855, which caused such dismay 

 in the vicinity of Cook Strait, could call those recently occurring 

 severe ones. 



It is true, in some places the earth has cracked and opened, 

 but nowhere to any great extent. Nothing occurred like the 

 great cracks at Wanganui and Wairau, in Cook Strait. 



It is a very noticeable fact that all of the cracks we saw 

 took the general north-easterly direction of the line of volcanic 

 action, and all of them followed closely along depressions in the 

 surface, which are undoubtedly old cracks, due to much heavier 

 earthquakes in the past. 



Sympathetic Action of other points. 



It has been stated that the eruption is quite local in its 

 action, and goes to prove that the series of hot springs in dif- 

 ferent places, and other signs of volcanic action in the central 

 zone, are separated, and have no connection or sympathy with 

 one or another. A consideration of the following facts relating 

 to events which occurred at the time of eruption, or soon after, 

 go to prove that such a conclusion has been drawn from insuffi- 

 cient data. 



The hot springs in the neighbourhood of Eotorua were 

 greatly affected. A small steam fumarole, (which in its ordinary 

 state was only occasionally visible,) near the Government 

 Agent's house, became a large boiling spring about 10 feet 

 in diameter, from which a good- sized stream of hot water ran 

 away towai'ds the lake. Further north — at the base of the 

 Pukeroa hill, and in the direction of the Maori village of Ohine- 

 mutu — steam came forth from iuuumerabie cracks in the earth, 

 sometimes accompanied by hot water, which formed streams 

 running alongside the road from the old to the new town- 

 ship; and in the pah it-;elf a spri'ig burst out in the great 

 meeti}jg-house of Tamate Kapua ; another in the path leading 

 down to it ; and yet another just behind the building. All of 

 these outbursts occurred on the night of the eruption ; they all 

 follow, however, the old deposits of sinter at the base of the 

 Pukeroa hill — the last remaining signs of former great activity 

 in that locality. The activity of the vast number of fumaroles 

 and springs in and around Ohinemutu was certainly greater 

 than usual a few days after the 10th. The level of Lake Rotorua 

 oscillated somewhat on the 10th June, but to no great extent. 

 At 7 a.m. it fell 1 inch, at 9 a.m. it rose 6 inches, and fell again 



28 



