CrawForD.—Geology of the North Island of New Zealand. 323 
ashes and cinders were gradually formed. These eruptions breaking through 
the original submarine layers of trachytic lava, breccia and tuff, raised them 
and left them, as we now find them, forming a more or less regular belt 
round the central cones, and having a slight inclination from the centre 
outwards. These belts I shall have occasion to refer to under the name of 
 * tuff craters,’ or ‘ cones of tuffs, or ‘ craters of elevation.’ In the course of 
time the volcanic action decreased, and we must now imagine that tremend- 
ous earthquakes occurred, that parts of the newly-formed crust gave way 
and fell in, forming vast chasms and fissures, which are now occupied by the 
lakes, hot springs, and solfataras. 
“Thus we now find in the central part of the Northern Island an exten- 
sive volcanic plateau of an elevation of 2,000 feet, from which rise two 
gigantic mountains—Tongariro and Ruapehu. They are surrounded by 
many smaller ones, as Pihanga, Kakaramea, Kaharua, Rangitukua, Puke 
Onaki, Hauhanga. The natives have well-named these latter— the wives 
and children of the two giants Tongariro and Ruapehu '—and they have a 
legend to the effect that a third giant, named Taranaki, formerly stood near 
these two, but quarreling with his companions about their wives, was 
worsted in combat and forced to fly to the West Coast, where he now stands 
in solitary grandeur, the magnificent snow-capped beacon of Mount Egmont 
(8,270 feet). These are the three principal trachytic cones of the Northern 
Island. 
“By far the grandest and loftiest of the three is Ruapehu, whose 
truncated cone, standing on a basis of about twenty-five miles in diameter, 
attains a height of 9,000 to 10,000 feet above the level of the sea, about 
3,000 feet of which is covered with glaciers and perpetual snow. Ruapehu, 
like Taranaki, is extinct ; Tongariro can alone be said to be active. I was 
enabled to distinguish five craters on Tongariro, three of which are, to a 
certain extent, active. Steam is always issuing from them, and the natives 
state that from the principal crater, called Ngauruhoe, on the top of the 
highest cone of eruption (6,500 feet), occasional eruptions of black ashes 
and dust took place, accompanied by loud subterranean noises.” 
To this description I will add that Tongariro appeared to me to be a 
truncated cone, of which the main crater had fallen in, and had probably 
at one time exceeded Ruapehu in height. Ngauruhoe rises from its flank 
as a lateral cone. 
The plateau under the eastern side of Ruapehu is called Onetapu, or 
sacred ground. The wild appearance of this tract is well described by 
Dieffenbach. Here the trees, principally birch and totara, are dwarfed from 
the elevation, and the ground is scarred by the washing of torrents or from 
the effects of winter frosts. 
