572 Transactions. — Geology. 



line late at night. In these cases it was noticed that the 

 clothes were covered with a fine grey dust, but it was supposed 

 to have resulted from the dryness of the ground in the vicinity. 

 Early on the 15th those who were up noticed dust falling on 

 their clothes. This was especially noticeable on the western 

 and north-western side of the town, where the quantities that 

 fell enabled several bottles to be filled from the roofs of the 

 houses. Mr. Arthur McCarthy, who lives on Battery Point, 

 brought me some of the specimens collected by him, as did 

 also Mr. Yuill. These were gathered from different localities, 

 but they are similar in every particular. One of the officers 

 of the borough prison gathered some of the dust, and I also 

 gathered some at the Athenaeum rooms and at my own house. 

 The specimens I have are exactly similar to the fine dust which 

 fell on the deck of the steamer " Southern Cross " as she was 

 passing along the Bay of Plenty on her way to Napier on the 

 morning following the Tarawera eruption in July, 1886. 



In order to obtain the fullest information concerning the 

 distribution of the dust, I wrote a few lines to each of our local 

 papers asking for information, but no one outside Napier ap- 

 pears to have noticed any dust except Mr. Peters, who has the 

 mail-contract for the coach-line between Moawhango and 

 Tokaanu. There had been telegrams announcing volcanic ex- 

 plosions at Tongariro, and he informed me that Te Mari had 

 burst out in a fresh place, and that a number of dust-showers 

 had occurred. The country extending from Eoto Aira to the 

 Wai-o-ho-nu Stream, in the direction of the Onetapu Desert, 

 had been covered with volcanic dust to the depth of 2in., and 

 most of the vegetation had been destroyed. He stated that 

 the dust-storm had reached Tokaanu, and that he noticed the 

 wind, when it changed to the west and north-west, carried an 

 immense black cloud in the direction of the Kaimanawa 

 Mountains, and he supposed that portions of the cloud, which 

 was full of dust, reached Napier. 



I have not been able to find out whether the district has 

 been visited by a similar storm within the memory of any 

 living colonist, but the recent shower is a full testimony as to 

 the truth of the statement made by me in a paper that was 

 read before our Society in 1886, entitled " Traces of Volcanic- 

 dust Showers at Napier and Petane,"* wherein it is stated 

 that " in and around Napier a large percentage, in fact the 

 larger portion, of the soil is of volcanic origin." 



The last eruption of Te Mari was in November, 1892. It 

 was visited by me on the 1st January, 1893, and a description 

 of it appears in the Transactions, vol. xxvi., art. xliii. 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., xix., art. xlix. 



