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PROCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Nov. 30, 



people have had a common origin with the Sandwich Islanders. The 

 language has but a slight dialectal diiFerence from the Hawaiian; 

 so slight, indeed, that a separation of people for four or five cen- 

 turies might be presumed to have caused a greater ; and if it can 

 be established that Rangitoto has been in eruption since the coming 

 of the Maori, ethnologists may, perhaps, ere long assist in ascer- 

 taining their date. Leaving, however, this speculation, I may 

 mention that fern-root (Pteris esculenta) has been found by well- 

 diggers, iminjiu-ed, at a depth of 15 feet below a bed of scoriae, near 

 Mount Eden ; and that charred bones, apparently human, were 

 found on the edge of a lava-stream, and protruding from the mass, 

 which had cooled about them. 



Fig. 7. — Sketch-plan of Mount Wellington and Waipuna Lake, 

 eight miles east of Auckland. 





A. Tufa-crater, a. Swampy hollow. B. Tufa-crater, about 400 feet high. 

 C. Lava-stream. D. Recent crater, about 200 feet high. E. Lava-stream. 

 F. Lake Waipuna, an old Tufa-crater. 



Earthquakes (common and occasionally violent in the neighbour- 

 hood of Wellington — a clay-slate and granitic country) are here 

 unknown, or of doubtful remembrance. Are we to conclude that 

 the numerous volcanic vents have given off all that was of an expan- 

 sive or disturbing nature, and that they are really extinct ? In the 

 Bay of Plenty, at a distance of about 140 miles, is "White Island, a 

 volcano of considerable activity ; and in a chain from that to the 

 great inland volcano, " Tonge Eiro," exist many geysers and solfa- 

 taras, all active. Has the volcanic effort become transferred to these 

 — and are they the safety-valves of the Auckland country ? Ob- 

 servation may yet show whether these have come into activity since 

 the cessation ol eruption at Auckland. The buried plants and bones 

 may unfold a page in their relative history. 



