432 AUSTRALASIA. 



embracing nearly the whole island away to the easternmost headlands. The 

 western slopes of the extinct volcano arc finely timbered, while on the other side 

 stretches the uninhabitable Onetapu desert thickly strewn with the ashes and scoriae 

 ejected from the Ruapehu craters at some unknown epoch. But at one time even 

 this dreary solitude was covered with large forest trees, whose charred stems are 

 found beneath the overhang refuse. 



A level space of about 5 miles separates the base of Ruapehu from that of the 

 still active Tongariro volcano, which rises farther north on a pedestal about 3,000 

 feet high. But the deep trough encircling the mountain seems to show that 

 perhaps at one time there stood on this spot a vast crater, from which gradually 

 rose the Tongariro cone, a perfectly regular pile of ashes and scoriae, whose terminal 

 crater according to NichoUs is now about 8,200 feet high. The volcano, nearly 

 always in a state of eruption, was till recently strictly " tabooed " by the natives. 

 Nevertheless it has been scaled, its summit affording a superb view of the great 

 crater and smaller lateral mouths vomiting forth dense clouds of sulphurous 

 vapours. Across the wreaths of smoke waving on the breeze the observer detects 

 a few pools of blue water flooding the terminal depressions of the parasitic 

 volcanoes. Farther north Mount Ketotahi also discharges dense vapours, while 

 the regular cone of Mount Pihanga, commanding the south side of the great Lake 

 Taupo, has long been extinct. A IVIaori chief recently deceased has bequeathed 

 the volcanic masses of Buapehu and Tongariro to the New Zealand people as 

 a " national park," to be guarded for ever from the encroachments of private 

 property. 



Lake Taupo, occupying almost exactly the geographical centre of North 

 Island, also belongs to the New Zealand volcanic system ; the hypothesis has even 

 been advanced that it was formerly a crater of prodigious size. This view is 

 certainly not justified by the irregular form of the basin, which, however, is 

 bordered by volcanoes, whence have been discharged enormous quantities of lava, 

 pumice and scoriae. The first eruptions probably took place beueath the sea, the 

 ejected matter gradually separating from the ocean a large inlet, which in course 

 of time became transformed to a saltwater and then to a freshwater lake by the 

 action of rain, snow and other agencies. 



It is a remarkable coincidence that the Maori word Taupo has the meaning of 

 " Formerly Flooded Rock," as if the natives had a tradition about the gradual 

 upheaval of the land. All the central part of the island west of the old formations 

 dominant along the main axis consists of pumice several hundred yards thick and 

 covered with humus partly derived from disintegrated trachj'tes. The mountains 

 in the east, the volcanoes in the west and the ashes and scoriae in the intermediate 

 space, have pent up the central reservoir, thereby raising its level to the convex 

 surface of the shield-shaped plateau which occupies the central part of North 

 Island. Taupo stood at one time even at a higher level, as shown by the clear 

 lines of the old beaches along the face of the surrounding slopes. But it has been 

 partly emptied by the emissary, which has gradually eroded the heaps of pumice 

 confining the lacustrine basin on the north side. At present the level of the lake 



