486 Transactions. — Miscellaneoiis. 



mountain were due to the percolation from a cold lake on the 

 summit, a sketch of which he exhibited. Dr. Hector then 

 gave a list of plants differing from alpine-plants in the South 

 Island, and exhibited on the screen with the lantern views 

 both Euapehu and Tongariro." — (Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. xii.^ 

 p. 423.) 



Mr. Collie's first" visit thither was in May, 1878, and his 

 second in December of that same year (these two dates I 

 obtain from his own paper "On Volcanoes and Geysers in New 

 Zealand," read by Dr. Hector before the Wellington Philo- 

 sophical Society in June, 1879) ; but he was still there in 

 January, 1879, as I gather from a date written by himself on 

 a photographic view of Ngauruhoe. On each of his visits he 

 spent several days on the mountain and in its neighbour- 

 hood. 



In that short paper of his is his description of the crater, 

 of his descending into it, and of his passing a night within it — 

 all interesting and very plain, short, and terse ; perhaps the 

 only fault to be found with it is its extreme brevity. That, 

 however, will enable me the better to quote it verbatim here 

 (seeing such a daring feat is all but unknown), while it serves 

 to contribute an additional item (combined with the still 

 earlier ascent made by Dr. Hector) towards the completion 

 of the longer and more particularly scientific account of the 

 mountain by Mr. Hill. 



" Tongariro {NgauruJioe). — When the writer visited the 

 crater of Tongariro in May of last year (1878) there was a 

 cone on the north-west side of it. This cone was about 120ft. 

 wide at the top, and was closed at the bottom, as if the vol- 

 cano had not been in action for a considerable time. Upon 

 the writer's climbiug the mountain (a feat always attended 

 wath difficulty and risk) and descending into the crater in 

 December following, he found that the above cone had com- 

 pletely vanished, and that along the greater part of the north 

 side of the crater another cone, about 500ft. wide at the top, 

 had been violently thrown up. In the interior of this cone, 

 at the bottom, there w^ere two openings opposite each other, 

 out of which sulphurous steam was blown in considerable 

 quantities. The outside of the cone was of loose material, as 

 might be expected from its recent deposition, and was composed 

 of stones, pumice, cinders, and debris of the mountain. 



* Yet on one of his large photographic views of Ngauruhoe is an in- 

 scription, by himself, that it was taken in " 1874." This seems strange ; 

 and IMr. Lys (to whom I have submitted it) assures me it must have 

 been an error for 1878, as Mr. Collie had not been there before this dae. 

 The large views of Kotorua and the hot springs there, immediately pe- 

 ceding in the same album, are all dated " 1874," which, if written at 

 the same time, might have easily led to the error in the last figure. 



