362 Transactions. — Geology. 



signs of great age in the trachytic lavas of which the mountains 

 are formed will allow of our placing the time of its former 

 (lates't) activity within the historical or traditional period, a 

 time extending back for not more than five hundred years. 



Many will remember the fine forest that occupied the western 

 slopes of Ruawahia, reaching down nearly to the lake margin. 

 Kothing is left but a number of stumps and branchless trees, 

 many of them burning, and adding by their weird appearance to 

 the general desolate look of the country. The clumps of trees 

 which adorned the south-eastern slope of Tarawera have almost 

 wholly disappeared, being covered up by the deposits which 

 buried the little Maori village in which poor Brown and his 

 Maori friends lie buried. A few charred and blackened stumps 

 are alone left to denote the spot. 



The changes in the contour of the country around the base 

 of Tarawera and Eotomahana are most remarkable, and bear 

 witness to the vast amount of matter which has been ejected. 

 Messrs. Harrow and Edwards, who formed part of the boating 

 party which crossed Lake Tarawera to search for Te Ariki 

 village, where it was known a large number of Maoris lay 

 buried, tell us that in many places the shore of the lake near 

 the old landing-place on the route to Eotomahana is so altered 

 by the conversion of part of the lake into dry land that locali- 

 ties cannot be recognized. They furnish an instructive section 

 of the ejecta, as seen in the bed of a torrent cut through it since 

 the 10th June : — 



Ft. in. 

 On the bottom were large stones... ... 



Ashes and mud ... ... ... ... 3 



Scorias (still hot on the 15th) ... ... 1 



Ashes and sand ... . . ... ... 15 



Mud, forming the surface ... ... 4 



This gives a depth of 23 feet in that particular locality, but 

 it is evidently much deeper in others. On the slopes of Te 

 Hape-o-toroa, we can state positively that in one place 25 feet 

 of matter has been deposited, the topmost layers being fine and 

 coarse sand mixed with small fragments of stone and sinter ; 

 and this deposit was quite hot on the sixth day after the 

 eruption at a depth of 4 or 5 feet. The vast number of small 

 fragments of siliceous sinter scattered over the country west 

 and south-west of Eotomahana, points to the destruction of 

 the terraces, of which materials they were mainly formed. 



The Steam Cloud. 



Eiding home, weary and covered with mud, we baited to 

 gaze upon one of the most glorious sights man could view. We 

 stood in a light-timbered grove just outside the belt of the ash- 



