310 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
cone rising 7500 feet above the sea and it is in more or less con- 
stant voleanie activity. Its products, however, are harmless ash 
showers and great clouds of steam and sulphurous gases. The 
third, Tongariro, is lower than the others and is in fact but the 
stump of a once much higher cone whose top has been violently 
blown off. 
Out in the Bay of Plenty, far to the northeast, lies White Is- 
land, the summit of a very active voleano. A line drawn from 
White Island to Ruapehu passes through Rotorua, Tarawera, Wai- 
mangu, Taupo, and Ngauruhoe. This is the line of the great 
Whakatane fault. Activities such as the Tarawera eruption are 
accompanied more or less by sympathetic activities along its entire 
course. It has been ealled ‘‘the safety-valve of New Zealand’’, 
and at intervals for hundreds of thousands of years, voleanie 
phenomena like those described at Tarawera have been going on 
along this line of weakness. At times they eclipsed even that 
majestic display when in addition to paroxysmal outbursts on a 
titanie scale great sheets of lava were extruded one after another. 
WANGANUI AND THE PLIOCENE FOSSILS 
Wanganui, located on the west coast one hundred miles directly 
north of Wellington, is a progressive city of some sixteen or 
eighteen thousand people. It claims to be the fifth largest city of 
the Dominion. It is situated near the mouth of the Wanganui 
river which is scarcely deep enough for ocean-going vessels, but 
navigable by lighters to large steamers; a brisk export trade in 
wool, frozen meats, butter and other dairy products is carried on. 
Efforts to deepen and enlarge the harbor are in progress. The 
city is built on a low plain, quite above tide, on which are rem- 
nants of a terrace. The business district on the right bank is 
substantially built and has paving and electric tram lines. A 
number of well constructed bridges give access to the left bank 
which is higher ground occupied by a very beautiful residence 
section. The highest part, known as Durie’s Hill, is reached by a 
lift in a shaft 216 feet high which is at the inner end of an elec- 
trically lighted concrete tunnel over 700 feet long, opened at the 
level of the main bridge. From a tower at the top of the lift one 
gets a fine view of the river and city. A clear sky and a good 
field glass permit a view of Ruapehu to the north, Egmont to the 
northwest, the Taraura range near Wellington to the south, and 
