Hill. — Artesian-water Basins of Heretaunga Plain. 435 



history of the area known as Hawke's Bay and the Heretaunga 

 Plain. The two have a similar history, and must be read 

 together, although they are to-day so unlike. The present 

 Heretaunga Plain was at one period a mere portion of Hawke's 

 Bay. The whole of the area extending from Mahia Peninsula 

 to Maraekakaho was once covered with land, and formed a 

 portion of the East Coast district. Then came a period of 

 subsidence along the east coast, and of elevation in the direction 

 of the Ruahines and the Kawekas, and great changes took place 

 in the surface-features of the country between the rising moun- 

 tains in the west and the subsiding coast area. 



In order to make these statements clear we must see what 

 the rocks themselves tell of the story of the past ; for it is largely 

 by means of what is left that we can tell something of what once 

 was. A visit to an old castle-ruin does not show us the stately 

 scenes that once took place in the banqueting-hall ; but a study 

 of the social life of the period when the castle was built will enable 

 us to dovetail some of the doings of the people so as to form a 

 complete whole of what is to-day a mere ruin and desolation, 

 and our own imaginings will do the rest. Geology speaks in the 

 same way. Every rock and every stone tells a history, just as 

 the lower hills at Havelock, at Redcliffe, near Taradale, and the 

 cliffs at the Kidnappers, tell a story that cannot be misread by 

 those who are anxious to discover truth as supplied in nature's 

 storehouse. All the lower hills near Havelock are made up of 

 shingle-deposits so recent that Mr. Leipst, the noted well-sinker 

 of Hastings, brought up with his machine a few days ago from 

 a depth of 200 ft. a part of the bone of a bird (probably a kaka) 

 in a well that he is sinking at Te Mata. Similar shingle and 

 pumice deposits appear at Redcliffe, near Taradale ; and if we go 

 along the beach from Mr. F. Gordon's station in the direction of 

 the Kidnappers we shall find scores and scores of feet of shingle- 

 beds, pumice-beds, and other beds, deposited as regularly as if 

 they had been arranged by human hands. In Napier the merest 

 remnants of the shingle-beds remain, but when found thev tell 

 the same kind of story as do the shingle-deposits at Havelock 

 and the Kidnappers. And so of the islands in the Inner Har- 

 bour, the cliffs bounding the harbour, as at Maraetaha. Petane, 

 and along the shore hills in the direction of Tangoia : all present 

 similar characteristics, all show deposits of shingle and pumice, 

 and all present to the bay a vertical face, as if they had been 

 cut away by means of a sharp knife. 



Try to imagine Hawke's Bay, or, rather, the Hawke's Bay 

 extended district such as it was when the bay that is now covered 

 with water was covered with land. The locality known as the 

 Kidnappers continued north-north-east to Portland Island, and 



