72 Transactions. 



fires would destroy the standing timber, and would often spread much 

 farther than intended. In this way the large forests of the Taupo country 

 have been reduced to their present dimensions. These forests can be 

 taken as sufficient to show that no great change has taken place in the 

 surface configuration of Taupo during their time of growth. And as it is 

 usually admitted that the New Zealand forest growth is very slow, it is not 

 too much to place, the beginning of the forest at over a thousand years ago. 



Up to this point we are on firm ground, but how much further back 

 than the date given above to the beginnings of forest growth it is impossible 

 to determine. The Maori occupation of the country around the lake prior 

 to the time of Ngatoroirangi, Tia, and others of the Arawa people is 

 extremely doubtful ; and no other evidence beyond theirs is known to exist. 



The forest gives no indication of many generations of large trees. Tiie 

 shallowness of the humus in the forest will not admit of the idea of the 

 decay of generations of the larger forest-trees, and the contours of the 

 country are so sharp that it is quite evident the change from one deposit 

 of pumice to a covering of some kind must have been very rapid. Perhaps 

 the order of change was the same as we have given above — fern, tussock, 

 scrub, forest. 



Beneath the surface pumice for several miles around the Township of 

 Taupo there is a deposit of volcanic mud, very much like the mud from 

 the eruption of Tarawera in 1886. This mud can be traced in all the road- 

 cuttings leading out from Taupo. On the old Atiamuri Road from Taupo 

 via Oruanui it appears in every cutting, low down in the valleys as well 

 as high up on the hills. It is very noticeable on both sides of the Waikato 

 River near the bridge at Taupo. Beyond Oruanui, on the Mokai Road, 

 it is seen for only a short distance, not quite two miles from Oruanui. On 

 the Rotorua Road, via Wairakei, it can be found for over six miles beyond 

 Wairakei. On the Napier Road it can be traced from the edge of the 

 Taupo Lake to Opepe. The deposit is not found at more than 7 ft. below 

 the surface, except near the edge of the lake, and in many places it is only 

 a few inches. The average depth may be reckoned at 3 ft. 



The existence of this stratum of mud at such a depth shows that the 

 surface configuration of the country was almost the same prior to the 

 eruption as it is now. 



The source of the mud seems to have been some point near the. explosion 

 craters at Rotokawa, the deposit, as far as can be traced, having somewhere 

 about the same thickness at points equally distant from that centre- 

 Taupo, Wairakei, and the hills above the Aratiatia Rapids on the western 

 side having about the same thickness of mud ; Oruanui much less ; and 

 still farther away from Rotokawa it is not found for more than two miles 

 on the Mokai Road. 



There are. other questions connected with the age and appearance of 

 the country that the writer does not feel competent to deal with. For 

 instance, the streak of mud we have mentioned appears low down near the 

 present level of the lake, and at least 800 ft. above it. Yet the terraces 

 which mark old lake-levels are formed in the pumice which is on top of 

 the mud. This is very noticeable in the case of the terrace at 120 ft. above 

 the present level. This seems to indicate that when the mud was deposited 

 the surface features were almost the same as at present : that a lake was 

 formed and rose to a considerable height above the present level — how high 

 we cannot at present determine ; and that the lake gradually receded, leaving 

 terrace formations, more or less distinct, until it reached its present level. 



