DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 



"33 



aspiration to annex Samoa, maternal indulgence led her to soften the disappointment by 

 presenting her hopeful offspring with the Kermadecs. Accordingly New Zealand, in 1887, 

 sent down the Government steamer Stella to proclaim her supremacy over them. They 

 comprise four islands, extending over some one hundred and fifty miles of sea-way, and 

 are distant about six hundred miles north-east of their foster-parent. They were discovered 

 in 1788 by the transport Lady Penrhyn. D'Entrecasteaux named them in 1793; D'Urville 

 passed them in 1827, and whalers and some few settlers afterwards broke their solitude 

 for a time, but were discouraged by volcanic outbreaks. For nine years the Kermadecs 

 remained uninhabited, and then, in 1878, a gentleman named Bell repaired thither with 



THE FRENCH PASS. 



his family from Samoa to subdue the semitropical wilderness, and under his hands con- 

 siderable progress in cultivation and in the increase of stock has been made. Steam may 

 still be seen escaping from the precipitous cliffs of Denham Bay, and on the northern coast 

 warm water oozes out of the sand. The centre of the Island is formed of a crater a 

 mile and three-quarters long by a mile and a quarter wide, from whose rim, averaging 

 one thousand feet high, spurs are thrown off towards the coast. Macauley Island, with 

 an area of seven hundred and fifty-six acres, is an extinct volcano, and Curtis Islands 

 and L'Esperance, or French Rock, are somewhat less in area. 



A great mountain range, trending south-west to north-east, runs through the whole 

 of New Zealand from the South Cape to the East Cape, the only interruption being Cook 

 Strait. In the North Island the volcanic forces are still active, and three distinct volcanic 

 zones are clearly defined. The principal of these is the one known as the Taupo zone, 

 extending from Mount Egmont on the west coast past Lake Taupo, through the Hot Lake 

 region of the North Island to White Island in the Bay of Plenty. Right in the centre 

 of the Island stand the two giant volcanic cones of New Zealand Ruapehu and Tongariro, 

 the former over nine thousand and the latter upwards of six thousand feet high. Ton- 

 gariro is active still in solfatara, and its craters are constantly steaming. Ruapehu gave forth 

 steam immediately before the outbreak at Rotorua in 1836, as well as some time after, 

 but apparently it has resumed its deep repose. A company of smaller cones, Pihanga, 



