ERUPTION OP MOUNT TAEAWERA. 



179 



The next day a large column of steam, 100 feet high, ascended from 

 the crater. No earthquakes are recorded in the neighbourhood 

 during the whole of this time. Between Euapehu and Taupo lies 

 Tongariro, the principal cone of which, Ngauruhoe, as well as two 

 other smaller cones to the north, constantly emit steam. Ngauruhoe 

 was in active eruption on July 6, 1870. 



About 130 miles N.N.E. of Tongariro is White Island, or Waikari, 

 iu the Bay of Plenty (rig. 1). It is a solfatara, 860 feet high, and sur- 

 rounded by water 1200 feet deep half a mile from its shore . Between 

 them is a zone, 20 or 30 miles broad, abounding in solfataras, mud 

 volcanoes, fumaroles, geysers, aud hot springs, which has been 

 called the Taupo zone by Dr. von Hochstetter. The scene of the 

 recent eruption is in the centre of this zone, about halfway between 

 Tongariro and White Island. 



Mt. Tarawera stands on the eastern side of the lake of the same 

 name. It is a flat-topped ridge about three miles long and nearly 

 half a mile broad, surrounded by rocky precipices, rising abruptly 

 from a plateau and sending out a long spur to the north-east, as 

 well as a shorter one to the south. The highest point of the ridge 

 is 3609 feet above the sea and is called Euawahia ; immediatelv to 

 the north is a col, about 500 feet deep, which separates from the 

 main part of the ridge a smaller and rather lower portion called 

 Wahanga. The southern peak of the ridge, that which looks over 

 Eotomahana, is called Tarawera by the Maories, but it is only one 

 end of the ridge of which Euawahia is the other, and Europeans 

 generally apply the name Tarawera to the whole mountain, including 

 Wahanga. It presented no appearance of being a recent volcano ; 

 there was no crater on the top, which seems to have undergone 

 extensive denudation ; and the Maories have no tradition of its 

 ever having shown signs of activity. 



Eotomahana was some two or three miles south of Tarawera (fig. 2). 

 It was a shallow lake, about a mile long and a quarter of a mile broad, 

 surrounded by numerous fumaroles and hot springs among which 

 were the famous White and Pink Terraces. It drained into Lake 

 Tarawera by the Kaiwaka stream. Its height above the sea is 

 given by Hochstetter as 1088 feet. A little to the north-east of 

 Eotomahana, under the spur from Mt. Tarawera, was a small lake 

 called Eotomakiriri, on the shores of which were curious, circular 

 crater-rings *. About two and a half miles south-west of Eotoma- 

 hana is another small lake called Okaro ; it lies immediately under 

 Kakaramea, a pointed hill formed of fumarole clays (decomposed 

 rhyolite) from the sides of which steam constantly escapes ; but 

 there were no hot springs in Okaro. 



The rocks found in the district are all volcanic, chiefly rhyolite, 

 which is generally the stony variety called liparite, but occasionally 

 it is vitreous. South of Eotomahana, however, and probably on the 

 southern slopes of Mt. Tarawera, a dark- coloured augite-andesite 

 occurs. Near the hot springs the rocks are all decomposed into soft 

 fumarole clays, white, red, yellow, and grey in colour. 



* Hochstetter's ' New Zealand/ p. 419, and figure. 



