328 BOILING MUD-PONDS. [PART II. 



clothes the margin of the springs ; and although 

 continually exposed to the rising steam, the verdure 

 is little altered. 



I started in the morning of the 10th for some 

 other hot-springs which I had descried at a dis- 

 tance. They are about a mile to the southward of 

 those above described, but on the opposite slope of 

 the hills, and are arranged in the same direction of 

 the compass, that is, from north-west to south-east. 

 They are situated in a ravine, bounded on the other 

 side by a range of steep and precipitous cliffs. I 

 was alone; but met three natives, who were going 

 back to Taupo, and who offered to be my guides. 

 The first springs I came to were four in number, 

 and close together. They issued through gravel, 

 and were two feet and a half deep, and about two 

 feet in diameter. The thermometer, when its bulb 

 was brought to the bottom of the spring, rose to 

 the boiling-point. The water was nearly clear, and 

 had an agreeable acidulous taste and a slight smell 

 of hydrosulphurous gas ; a thin crust of alum and 

 sulphur was deposited at the brink of the spring. 

 The taste of the water, however, was not quite the 

 same in all the springs. At a little distance were 

 boiling mud-ponds, or stufas ; and still farther, steam 

 and sand were thrown up, and constituted a com- 

 plete volcanic range of miniature hills. The mud 

 and sand had formed regular truncated cones, of 

 which one was about fifteen feet at the base, and ten 

 feet high ; inside this cone was a funnel, about two 



