Pond and Sotth. — On the Eruption of Mt. Tarawera. 369 



the further extension in a S.W. direction are shown by the 

 length of the rift extending to Rotomahana, thence by its entire 

 length, and finally proceeding in the direction of Okaro Lake 

 for a mile and a half. Here we find its effects very violent, the 

 active craters already described not being built up, but blown 

 du-ectly out of the rhyolitic rock. 



But all speculations of this kind are premature, in view of 

 the paucity of information with regard to the present state of 

 the interior of the lake crater. We merely bring them forward 

 to incite inquiry, and thereby arrive at the whole truth of the 

 questions involved. 



We cannot close without a tribute to the memory of the 

 dead. That this disaster should have had so fatal a result is 

 a matter of great sorrow. Awoke by the roaring of subterranean 

 thunder, by repeated shocks of the moving earth, awed by the 

 fearful scenes of fire and lightning, apparently emitted by a 

 mountain close in their vicinity, with hope of escape cut off, 

 and the despair and uncertainty of unknown and unexperienced 

 terrors, not less than 102 of the poor Natives must have gazed 

 in fear ; until with a terrible roar the lake beside them was 

 belched out to cover and obliterate them, their villages and 

 lands, and leave no trace of what had been their homes and 

 cultivations for many years. 



Nor can we think without deep regret that some of those 

 Europeans at Wairoa who had viewed the grandeur of this 

 wonderful outburst for hours, from apparently so safe a position, 

 should have succumbed to the storm which raged so soon after- 

 wards. Long, indeed, will it be before the name of Wairoa will 

 be forgotten, or the memory of this beautiful valley, which was 

 transformed into a mournful desert in a few hours. 



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