41 
conceal yet many an unexpected treasure. 1 Whether the zone ot 
trachytic eruptions on South Island lias likewise a northerly conti- 
nuation on the East-side of tins mountain-range, future researches 
must determine. Perhaps the conical peak Mount Ilikurangi (5500 
feet) near East Cape, so celebrated in the legends of the natives, 
is such a trachyte or andesite-dome. 
Nevertheless the northern Island abounds in volcanic pheno- 
mena of every kind. The table-land on the Westsido of the mountain- 
range, sloping off gradually towards North and South and consti- 
tuting the remaining portion of North Island, is perforated in more 
than a hundred plac.es by the volcanic, forces from below, which 
have continued their operations to this very day. 
High trachytic cones of volcanic character; a large number of 
smaller basaltic cones of quite recent geological date; a long row 
of hot springs and steaming fountains, which, intermittent like the 
geysers upon Iceland, eject at shorter or longer intervals masses 
of seething water high into the air; fumarolcs and solfataras of 
the grandest variety , afford the geologist a rich field of observation, 
and the traveller a series of sights the most remarkable in nature. 
No wonder then, that these striking, far-famed phenomena, — the 
peculiar nature of which was as well comprehended by the very 
first settlers even without a minute geological knowledge, as by 
the natives, — led to the general supposition that the soil of New 
Zealand is principally of volcanic origin. 
In reality, however, the volcanic formations on North Island 
are limited to three separate districts , or to three zones, which, — 
different from the volcanic zone of South Island situated on the 
East-side of the Southern Alps, — lie all west of that range of 
mountains, which may be considered as a continuation of the Alps 
on North Island. 
Immediately contiguous to that northern range of mountains 
is the great central zone; I call it the Tempo Zone. It contains the 
grandest and rarest volcanic phenomena that New Zealand can boast 
1 This country is now being explored by Mr. Crawford, the Provincial Geologist 
of Wellington. 
