Hill. — Eotomahana and District revisited. 281 



from several crateral lakes near by. Sometimes the southern slope of the 

 Tarawera chasm or the momitain could be seen. Here the volcanic forces 

 had rent asunder a whole mountain-side before reaching Rotomahana, 

 where the volcanic phenomena were quite different from those on the moun- 

 tains. Stones and cinders, ashes and sand, with an abundance of the finest 

 powdery steel-grey dust, were hurled from the mountains, but mud alone, 

 of a bluish-grey colour, appears to have been sent from the Rotomahana 

 Crater. We followed the rift towards Okaro Lake, and saw the various 

 crater-shafts that had been made in various places. Some of them had 

 thrown out enormous stones, tons in weight. These had fallen into the 

 mud-covered area, and had made depressions that presented a curious 

 saucer-like appearance over the country. Some of the craters were mere 

 circular shafts of great depth, but we were unable to form an estimate of 

 the depth, as the stones rolled into them sent back no thud or somid of any 

 kind. To me the rift had the appearance of a great upheaval of country 

 where a line of hills had been rent or torn asunder and thrown apart, leaving 

 the rift-valley between them. 



The destructive effects of the eruption were not felt to the southward 

 beyond the ridge that separates the drainage of the Rotomahana area from 

 the Waiotapu Valley, for, although careful observation was made, the only 

 trace of activity having occurred in the valley was the discovery of small 

 globules of black sulphur near to the Primrose Terrace, and within a short 

 distance of the great mud volcano near a terrace formation. 



Nature heals very rapidly the wounds she makes. Rearrangement 

 and renewal are always in progress, and no sooner has one aspect of the 

 earth's crust played an important part than new energies begin to manifest 

 themselves, so that the old is quickly replaced by the new. 



Before, however, noting the changes that have taken place as noted 

 by me, it may be of som.e value to future inquirers to set down here what 

 was known by Europeans of Rotomahana and Tarawera up to the time 

 of the eruption. In no record that has come mider my notice is the Waio- 

 tapu Valley mentioned, and the first European to visit Rotomahana was 

 the Rev. Mr. Chapman, a missionary. In the Missionary Record of Jmie, 

 1838, it is reported that Mr. Thomas Chapman started from Paihia (Bay 

 of Islands) for Rotorua on the 2nd February, 1835, with a Mr. Pilley, and 

 that they reached the place on the 19th March. In August of the follow- 

 ing year the missionary station at Rotorua was burnt, and Mr. Chapman 

 went to Taupo, where, in May, 1841, he met Dieffenbach, the scientist 

 sent out by the New Zealand Land Company. Dieffenbach had been to 

 Tokaanu, and was travelling northward when he appears to have met Mr. 

 Chapman, from whom he obtained information about Rotomahana. On 

 the 1st June Dieffenbach reached Rotomahana, and he writes, " Towards 

 evening [1st June] we reached the hills which surround on all sides Rotu- 

 mahana. When we arrived on the crest of the hills the view which opened 

 was one of the grandest I had ever beheld. Let the reader imagine a deep 

 lake of blue colour surromided by verdant hills, in the lake several islets, 

 some showing the bare rock, others covered with shrubs, while on all of 

 them steam issued from a hundred openings between the green foliage 

 without impairing their freshness ; on the opposite side a flight of broad 

 steps of the colour of white marble with a rosy tint, and a cascade of boil- 

 ing water falling over them into the lake. Some Natives came over in a 

 canoe to fetch us over the lake to their settlement. Mr. Chapman was 

 probably the first European they had ever seen, as this lake has not been 



