480 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
level plain to the lake. On this plain is situated the new township of 
Rotorua, and that part of it between the suburbs and the Puarenga would 
form an admirable position for the hothouses and portions of the recreation 
grounds. 
On a plateau-looking depression in the hills to the southward, elevated 
about 250 feet above the plain, and commanding a most magnificent view 
of the whole basin of Rotorua, is an admirable site for the main sanatorium 
buildings and hotel residences, with an atmosphere ever clear, and free from 
the vapours inseparable from the vicinity of medicinal springs. This 
plateau, and adjacent hills, with the slopes to the level of the plain, and 
extending between the Taupo and Wairoa roads, would form the area on 
which the art of the landscape gardener would be chiefly employed. It is 
now quite open and fern-covered, but exhibits a combination of features 
favourable to landscape improvement which would be difficult to find 
surpassed. 
Towards the north-east of the general situation are two picturesque 
headlands extending into the lake, called Owhata and Owhatiura, whereon 
could be located a number of detached villas in variety of design, giving 
accommodation for the large number of visitors, who, desiring to remain 
a few weeks or months, would prefer to live near the lake. Near Ohine- 
mutu there are two other beautiful headlands, called Koutu and Kawaha, 
and on all these places private enterprise would soon furnish abundance of 
detached accommodation, the initiation or nucleus of which is only required 
to be provided by the sanatorium. 
To the eastward of Whakarewarewa is the road to the great attraction 
to tourists, Rotomahana, and to the west the road to Taupo. The soil on 
the hills and the slopes at their base is all that can be desired, while that of 
the plain, though light and sandy, is all the more suitable for the higher 
horticultural operations invited by the abundance of natural heat flowing to 
waste, and apropos,—the writer’s attention has been drawn to an account 
in the journal of the Society of Arts, of date 27th June, 1884, of the 
utilization of a hot spring at the baths of Acqui, in a hothouse, by means of 
which semi-tropical vegetables were ripened in spring season. This applica- 
tion of the natural heat of the Lake District has long been a favourite idea 
with many besides the writer. Its extent of adaptability is almost un- 
bounded where a natural fall of hot water exists, or where it can be 
economically raised and circulated by water power. 
The waste water at Whakarewarewa, at a moderate computation of its 
volume, and an average of 700 units of heat available from every gallon, 
would furnish per diem heat equal to that derived from the combustion of : 
six tons of coal in the same time. 
