NEW ZEALAND— NOETH ISLAND. 



435 



crevasses opened on the flanks oi: the volcano, whose summit, reduced to ashes, 

 was hurled into the air in the form of a column of vapours and flaming scoriae. 

 The ejected matter, which was visible over 150 miles off, rose to a height of 

 20,000 feet and fell in dense showers on the surrounding district. Whole 

 villages were crushed beneath the weight of the dry ashes, or changed to heaps of 

 mud by the raging storm that had gathered round the burning mountain. When 

 people could again venture to approach Tarawera, they found the whole aspect, of 

 the land transformed, and in some places buried beneath a uniform layer of 

 volcanic dust. No trace was left of the " Wonder of Wonders," the famous 



Fig. 188. — Lake Taeaweea. 

 Scale 1 ; 300,000. 





tasb or breenwich 



I76°30' 



|76°50- 



«,' '} Roto-mahana before June 10, 1886. 

 ^— ^— ^^^^— .^^^_— ^ 6 Miles. 



mineral spring of Te-Tarata, on the site of which there apjjeared a mud volcano 

 over 500 feet lower than the level of the old lake. Before the explosion the 

 waters falling into Roto-mahana, or the " Hot Ijake," rose in intermittent jets in 

 a flooded crater about 650 feet in circuit and 80 feet above Roto-mahana. After 

 filling this crater the waters overflowed its transparent, alabaster-like silicious 

 margent, falling in thin azure sheets from basin to basin, all with perfectly 

 semicircular white rims due to the regular undulation of the water circulating in 

 uniform eddies round the cascades. As its temperature fell the water, saturated 

 with silica and sulphurous substances, gradually changed in colour from the 



