CHAPTER XI 
The Isthmus of Auckland. 
Situation. — Waitemata and Manukau. — The City of Auckland. — The town of One- 
hunga. Geological features of the Isthmus. — The extinct volcanoes. — 63 points of eruption. 
— Tuff-cones and tuff-craters. — Cinder-cones. — Combinations of both. — Lava-streams. — 
Manukau lava-field. — Waitemata lava-field. — Lava-streams of different age. — Mount Welling- 
ton. — Lava-cones. — Rangitoto. — The Auckland volcanoes of very recent date. — The 
Isthmus as it was and as it is. — Past, Present and Future. 
The southern portion of the North Island is connected with 
the long-stretclied northwestern peninsula by a small isthmus upon 
the 37 lh parallel South latitude. On the East-side the sea penetrates 
through the isle-studded Hauraki Gulf far into the land, washing 
in its southwestern ramifications, in the Waitemata River, the 
North-side of the isthmus. On the western coast , the weather-side 
of the island, the ocean has forced a narrow entrance through 
hard volcanic conglomerates , thence assuming wider dimensions, 
and forming the extensive basin of the Manukau Harbour on the 
southern shore of the isthmus. The land between both seas has 
a breadth of only five to six miles, and at two places, where from 
the Waitemata River in a southerly direction narrow creeks are 
cutting deep towards the Manukau Basin , it dwindles down to one 
single mile, forming “portages,” which the natives have used since 
olden times for the purpose of dragging their canoes from one side of 
the sea to the other, 1 and which have roused among the colonists 
1 The western or Whau portage is one mile wide, and at its highest point 
111 feet high. The eastern, the Tamaki portage near Otahuhu, South of Mount 
Richmond, is only 3900 feet long and 66 feet high. 
11 ochstetter, New Zealand. 
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