Hill. — RotomaJuina and District i-evisited . 279 



individual, and it provides a kind of standard in estimating the physical 

 changes of a district when they are unaffected by artificial agencies. 



The past, as read in the rocks about us, goes a long way back, and our 

 ideas of time are so limited that none of us can measure a geological period 

 without some standard of time in relation to moving events as they af?ect 

 the human race. We know literally nothing as to the incoming of special 

 formations of rocks, or the time that it took in their making ; nor do we know 

 whether fifty or a thousand centuries have elapsed since the present forms 

 of organic life came into being. In nature's ever-active workshop changes 

 are going on, and how small is the period which our modern fauna and flora 

 represent of the evolutionary process that has ever been in operation, which 

 embraces the whole gamut of past life down and back to the time when 

 life first became possible on a cooling earth. It was some such thoughts 

 as these that led me to renew my acquaintance with a district that had 

 formed the subject of scientific dissertations, that had been the scene of 

 stupendous changes in mountain, lake, and valley, and which in a brief six 

 hours had produced devastation over a vast district estimated in thousands 

 of square miles, and but for the isolation of the area would have resulted 

 in the loss of many lives. Every living plant and animal within some miles 

 of the centre of volcanic disturbance was destroyed, and there was also loss 

 of human lives. 



It is not necessary for me to refer at length to the extent of the destruc- 

 tion caused by the Tarawera eruption. Details were published throughout 

 the Dominion and are still available to inquiriers, and scientific accomits 

 have been issued under the authority of the Government. Among these 

 may be mentioned the separate accounts by the late Sir James Hector, 

 Director of the Geological Survey; by the late Captain Hutton, F.G.S., 

 F.R.S. ; by Professor Thomas, M.A., F.G.S., of University College, Auck- 

 land ; and last but not least by Mr. Percy Smith, F.R.G.S., late Surveyor- 

 General. The accounts given by these scientists provide valuable litera- 

 ture dealing with certain aspects of vulcanism as obtained immediately 

 following the outbursts at Tarawera. 



As already remarked, the scene of the eruption was visited by me in 

 February and March, 1887. My guide was the late Mr. J. C. Blythe, who 

 had passed through the ordeal of the eruption at Wairoa Settlement, on 

 the west side of Lake Tarawera, when the place was utterly destroyed. 

 Mr. Blythe was Government officer in charge of the road-construction, and 

 he knew intimately the whole country extending from Galatea to Taupo 

 and from Taupo to Rotorua. His knowledge of the district was of much 

 value to the authorities immediately following the eruption ; but, although 

 he lived to help many, and to tell others subsequently of his never-to-be- 

 forgotten experiences on the eventful morning of the 10th Jmie, his nerves 

 were so shattered that he became a wreck of his former sfelf, and, although 

 as an old friend I tried to cheer him at my home in Napier, it was only of 

 temporary benefit, for on his return to Rotorua district he lived for only a 

 comparatively short time. Mr. Blythe was my guide and companion from 

 Rotorua over the whole of the comitry that had been immediately afl^ected 

 by the eruption. We visited the rift in the Tarawera Mountain, the site of 

 Wairoa, Rotomahana crater-basin, the earthquake flats towards Pareheru 

 and the Tikitapu ; the crater-valley forming a continuation of the rift, and 

 which subsequently became so celebrated or notorious by the break-out at 

 Waimangu ; the momitains known as Kakaramea and Maungaongaonga, 

 at the head of the Waiotapu Valley ; and finally made our way through 



