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of. Quite close to the centre of the island, on the southern shore 
of the large inland-lake Taupo , the waters of which fill a deep 
reservoir upon a sterile pumice-stone plateau of about 2000 feet 
above the level of the sea, the two giants among the volcanic cones 
of New Zealand , Tongariro and Ruapahu rear tlieir colossal heads. 
The Tongariro volcano, 6000 feet high, with two powerful, ever 
steaming craters , is still active at least as solfatara ; the Rua- 
pahu on the other hand, which is over 0000 feet high and 
covered with perpetual snow, appears to be totally extinct. These 
two mountains are surrounded by a number of smaller cones, 
likewise extinct, such as Pihanga, Kakaramea, Hauhanga and 
others , which the natives call the wives and children of the two 
giants. A third giant , — so says tradition , — named Tara- 
naki , stood formerly beside Tongariro and Ruapahu; but having 
quarrelled with the latter he was obliged to flee to the West-coast, 
where, a lonely exile on the coast, he now rears his hoary head 
amongst the clouds; this is the snow-capped Taranaki or Mount 
Egmont , 8270 feet high. 
The two principal rivers of the North Island, rising near the 
Tongariro and Ruapahu, are the Waikato flowing North, and the 
Wanganui running South into the Cook-Strait* The land, consisting 
wholly of quart zose trachytic rocks, — recently termed rhyolite to dis- 
tinguish them from the common trachytes, — and of pumice-stone, 
slopes from the foot of those mountains gradually to the north- 
eastern coast at the Bay of Plenty. A few miles from this coast 
lies the small island Whakari or White Island, 866 feet high, the 
conical peak of which, visible at a great distance by its continually 
ascending white clouds of steam, contains the second active crater 
of New Zealand. The distance from Tongariro to the Whakari 
Volcano is 120 nautical miles. Over this whole distance, almost 
on the very line between these two active craters, it seethes arid 
bubbles and steams from more than a thousand crevices and fis- 
sures, that channel the lava-beds, of which the soil consists, — a 
sure prognostic of the still smouldering fire in the depths below — 
while numerous freshwater lakes , of which Lake Taupe , twenty 
