154 PLATFORM AND CONE [PART I. 



sisted of a blue basaltic lava, overlaid to the depth 

 of from ten to fifteen feet by a formation of frag- 

 mentary rocks, boulders, and pebbles, which, how- 

 ever, I could not accurately examine. 



Scarcely any birds were to be seen at this height : 

 the cry, however, of the parrots re-echoed from the 

 woody gorges ; and a little bird, which is peculiar 

 to these heights, busied itself in our neighbourhood ; 

 it is related in shape and habits to our Sitta, but is 

 much smaller, and of a dark-green plumage. It is 

 the Acanthisitta tenuirostris of our Index, and 

 called piwauwau by the natives. 



Not far from this point the ridge forms a plat- 

 form, from which rises the pyramidical summit. 

 We reached the platform by descending into a deep 

 gorge which an arm of the Waiwakaio river has 

 scooped out of the blue lava. We walked with 

 ease in the rocky channel thus formed, and soon 

 came to the source of this arm, which took its rise 

 from under a frozen mass of snow which filled up 

 the ravine and remained unmelted, although it was 

 now the middle of summer. This place, however, 

 is not to be regarded as lying within the -limits of 

 perpetual snow, as the duration of this frozen mass 

 resulted from the fact that the influence of the sun 

 was obstructed by high walls rising on both sides. 

 There was very little vegetation here : I collected, 

 however, a Viola, a primulaceous and a ranuncu- 

 laceous plant, a Myosotis, and the Microcalia Aus- 

 tralis, the southern representative of our daisy, which 



