438 NEW ZEALAND. 
prolongation or foot of the boot is a region of hills and mountains, 
some of which are three thousand feet in height, and here also there 
are several extinct craters and hot springs. ‘This part of the island 
is remarkable for its deep irregular bays, which nearly divide the 
peninsula into an archipelago. 
The Bay of Islands is one of these indentations, though by no means 
the most remarkable. It is an irregularly branching area of waters 
cutting deeply into the coast, and sending coves in every direction 
far among the hills. It is about twelve miles long, and averages three 
in breadth, though varying from one to twelve miles. On account of 
the many extensive coves, a walk of five miles or more is often re- 
quired to accomplish a distance of a single mile along the shores. Its 
waters are studded with islands, which well entitle it to the name it 
bears. Rude sugar-loafs, truncated cones and rugged peaks of rock, 
either barren or with an occasional spot of green, diversify the water 
scenery. Nearly every point has its half a dozen islets, with boat 
passages between them ; and there are places innumerable where the 
sea dashes wildly through narrow channels among the isolated rocks, 
or roars in the deep caverns it has excavated. The neighbouring 
country is a succession of hills and deep valleys, and in every direc- 
tion the traveller finds tedious ascents, occasionally leading up a 
thousand feet. A dense growth or thicket of ferns has succeeded the 
former forests which have been burned. 
We have already remarked that the portion of the group trending 
northwest is parallel with the grand ranges of the Pacific, while the 
other portion has the transverse direction of the Tonga Islands, and 
along with the Kermadec Islands, is part of one and the same north- 
northeast and south-southwest chain. 
The rocks of New Zealand include the granitic with their asso- 
ciated beds, and those of more modern igneous origin, with the most 
recent volcanic : also arenaceo-argillaceous deposits and shales, besides 
limestone, and beds of coal. The most prevalent in the northern 
island is a sub-argillaceous rock, in general scarcely schistose, and 
apparently of ancient date. ‘This is the rock of the Bay of Islands 
and the adjoining country, the only part of New Zealand examined 
by the writer ; and we learn from Dr. Dieffenbach that it is the most 
abundant deposit in other parts. It is intersected by basaltic dikes ; 
and volcanic cones are occasionally isolated in regions of it, as at 
Waimate and Taiamai, twelve miles west of the Bay. 
Coal has been observed at Wangarrie, on the west coast of the 
