4.88 Transactions. — Mi^:cellaneous. 



scrub at the high and inaccessible north end, and the whole 

 soil being so largely impregnated with sulphur that on a 

 lighted match being thrown on the ground it caught fire 

 immediately, their time there must have been the very 

 opposite of pleasant. Then, the exposure to the winds and sun 

 was extreme ; but the very worst was when the land-winds 

 blew strongly towards them across the flaming sulphur-beds 

 beyond the hot-water lake, covering them with dense clouds 

 of stinking smoke and thick clammy vapour, rendering even 

 breathing difficult, from which there was no escape. The 

 lake, according to survey, contains an area of nearly 16 acres, 

 surrounded on more than three sides by high precipitous cliffs, 

 the two highest peaks being each nearly 900ft. high.''- 



In that short paper of Mr. Collie's (only two pages) read 

 before the Wellington Philosophical Society he says a little 

 about the volcano in White Island worthy of being quoted 

 here. He commenced it by saying, " In the pleasant, if some- 

 times arduous, pursuit of art-photography, the writer camped 

 for weeks close to the main volcanoes and geysers of the 

 colony, enjoying excellent opportunities for search into the 

 origin and working of these marvellous and attractive exhibi- 

 tions of nature's powers. And, viewing the existence, or it 

 might be termed life, of the earth in its present state for at 

 least thousands of years, the question naturally arose to the 

 wayfarer of to-day amongst these interesting scenes, ' Wlience 

 the activity which still pours forth the boiling waters of Eoto- 

 mahana, to run glistening down the silica terraces of their own 

 constant formation? — wherein the force that lights the red fires 

 which burn ever in the crater of White Island? — or what the 

 motive-power that still throws up a cone in the crater of 

 Tongariro (Ngauruhoe) ? ' The reply from the waters of Eoto- 

 mahana, from the fires of White Island, and from the cone of 

 Tongariro, was the same — the one word, ' Sulphur.' " And he 

 closes his paper with remarking, — 



" White Island. — It is generally supposed that the vapours 

 arising from White Island are steam from geysers, whereas 

 sulphurous steam never rises to any height. The main forces 

 of the grand display at the ' Theatre of Nature ' upon White 

 Island are burning beds of sulphur, which show their red fires 

 at night across the lake, whilst the fumes rise up into the air 

 in volumes, to spread there at a great height, like a balloon, or 



* See Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iii., p. 278, for an interesting scien- 

 tific paper on the geology, &c., of White Island, with diagrams, by Dr. 

 Hector, who visited it in 1870; and also same work, vol. i., p. 57, 

 for another scientific paper on the island, with map and rough survey of 

 the crater, by Lieutenant E. A. Edwin, E.N., who visited the island on 

 two occasions a few years before. 



