Fkiedlaender. — On Neio Zealand Volcanoes. 601 



eruption proper was over — the glare faded away, the sparks 

 and the flames disappeared, and the hghtning stopped. Now 

 and then, at longer intervals, there were one or two flashes, 

 but soon nothing was left but a great pillar of steam and 

 smoke that continued slowly to rise, and the top of which, 

 losing its sharp rounded outline of a cumulus cloud, began 

 to spread. Its height must have been very considerable, as 

 it reached our zenith apparently — but only apparently, as we 

 did not receive any ashes at our standpoint. 



These observations were made from the camp mentioned 

 above, on a perfectly clear night and with a very good bi- 

 nocular of 6-diameter enlargement, and therefore I am abso- 

 lutely certain of my statements. There were at least four 

 different light phenomena — (1) The reflection of the incan- 

 descent matter on the steam ; (2) what I called the sparks ; 

 (3) the electric hghtning ; and (4) the blue flames. Besides the 

 latter, there seeined to be sometimes reddish flames ; but 

 this I cannot state with absolute certainty, as from a distance 

 it is almost impossible even for an experienced observer to 

 distinguish with any degree of certainty illuminated steam 

 and supposed reddish flames. 



The above-described eruption seems to me to be remark- 

 able in more than one respect ; it evidently was one of many 

 similar eruptions which had been mentioned by the news- 

 papers. One of the characteristics of Te Mari's activity, 

 therefore, was its intermittency ; but not its only one. 

 What surprised me most was the display of incandescent 

 matter during the violent phase only, whereas before and 

 after nobody would have believed in the presence of red-hot 

 magma, as," with the exception of that explosion — lasting 

 about a quarter of an hour — no fire-reflection was visible. 



What looked like and were described as " sparks " were the 

 large number of red-hot boulders that were shot up. The im- 

 pression was that the fusion was very imperfect, the magma 

 very viscous, and scarcely as hot as that of Vesuvius, Etna, or 

 Stromboli, not to speak of the white-hot and most perfectly 

 molten lava of Hawaii. It is difficult to tell why the magma, 

 in the shape of reflection and red-hot stones, was visible only 

 at intervals, for this probably has been the case at more than 

 one eruption, as most of the newspaper reports state that 

 there had been "fire," and not only smoke, whereas during 

 the long time between the short paroxysms Te Mari looked 

 rather harmless, and little more than a lively solfatara. 



As to the electric lightning, there is but little doubt that 

 the source of electricity is the friction. This was the second 

 time I had observed volcanic lightning, and in both cases it 

 appeared in masses of ash-bearing steam ; and the ashes were 

 coarse, the single grains being about the size of a pin-head. 



