﻿Field. — On the N.W. District of Wellington Province. 131 



Wangaeliu, about sixteen or eighteen miles farther south. Of course the 

 directions above given are the general ones merely, the actual channel of this 

 river, as well as those of the Wangaehu and Turakina, being wonderfully 

 toi'tuous. For about a dozen miles above its junction with the Wangaehu^ 

 the Mangawhero flows through a beautiful valley, consisting of flats covered 

 with fern, flax, and koromiko scrub. The next three or four miles, as you 

 ascend, are more gorgy, and heavily wooded, though there are some fine bush 

 flats covered with splendid timber. Above this the valley opens again, and 

 for some miles consists of splendid flats of manuka and koromiko scrub. At 

 the falls, and for several miles above and below them, it is all flats of heavy 

 bush in the actual valley, but open fern and scrub towards the lower slopes of 

 the hills. The lateral valleys, up to the Manga-ai-turoa junction, contain also 

 fine open flats and terraces of rich fern and scrub land, and though behind and 

 between these there are steep wooded ridges, rising in some places to a height 

 of from 1,500 to 1,800 feet above the sea, even these contain a considerable 

 quantity of available land, disposed in the form of tables and level basins 

 about the heads of gullies. The lower spurs and bases of the hills all along 

 the Mangawhero, Wangaehu, and Turakina valleys, consist of coarse gravel, 

 but all the country above this level is of blue or yellowish white sandy clay, 

 full of sea shells, and with scarcely a trace of a pebble about it. There seems 

 to be an exception to this rule somewhere a little to the eastward of the 

 Wanganui River, near to Karatia. Some years ago some beautiful specimens 

 of copper ore were bi'ought to town by a pei-son, who asserted he had obtained 

 them while out pig-hunting with some Maoris in that locality ; and some 

 natives have assured me that there is a quantity of it in a gully opposite 

 Karatia. This would indicate the cropping out of primary rocks, underlying 

 the high hill, Tauakira (commonly, but wrongly, shown as Taupiri on the 

 maps) or its northern slopes. The Wangaehu River rises close to the Waikato 

 on the north-east slope of Ruapehu, and at its source is so strongly impregnated 

 with sulphur, and apparently alum, as to be quite nauseous. The colour of 

 the water is a dirty bluish white. The river winds round the stony desert, 

 and thence south-westerly along a tolerably level plain, mostly open, till it 

 reaches a point about S.S.W. of the mountain, and about sixteen or seventeen 

 miles distant from its summit. At this point it is joined by the Tokiahuru, 

 a large stream which rises on the eastern slope of Ruapehu, and winds in a 

 S.W. direction round its base. The Tokiahuru is joined by another large 

 stream, the Mangahuihui, which comes down from the south-west slope of the 

 mountain, and shortly afterwards by another, the Mangawarawara, which 

 rises in the level bush country westward of the mountain, and flows through 

 a lake in an extensive opening or plain in the bush, called the Rangataua, 

 before it reaches the Wangaehu. Below the junction the united streams 



