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low’s Hall I saw the layers of scoriae and cinders in new cuttings 
on both sides of the street. Near the barracks loose masses of 
scoriae and cinders are obtained as metal] ing-material from shafts 12 
to 16 feet deep; and I was told that on the occasion of special 
trials nothing but scoriae and cinders have been found at a depth 
of 340 feet, so that it almost seems as though, just beneath the 
barracks there were another centre of eruption. Farther below, 
near St. Paul’s Church, on Shortland Crescent, and in the ditches 
of Fort Britomart we meet again decomposed tuff-strata; likewise 
at the Clipp house and in the yard of the Victoria Hotel. The 
little valley, however, leading through these tuff-strata to Wynyard 
Pier, the natives call very strangely Wai ariki (warm water), 
as though a warm spring had been flowing there in olden times. 
The scoria and cinder-cones, although not adapted to agri- 
cultural purposes are nevertheless of practical value. They furnish 
an excellent material for macadamizing roads, which can be easily 
obtained ; and it is to this material , that the Isthmus of Auckland 
owes its beautiful metalling roads. The metalling-quarries are opened 
everywhere at points contiguous to the road , as on the foot of 
Mount Eden, on One Tree Hill, Mount Wellington and others. 
The lava of the Auckland volcanoes consists of a scoriaceous 
basalt, containing small grains of Olivin. The lava-beds of Mount 
Eden are on various places columnar. The porous mass , called 
“s corise-stone” is exceedingly well adapted, for building-material, 
and is used, for this purpose in Auckland in like manner , as in 
Melbourne quite a similar kind of basaltic lava, found in the vi- 
cinity of the latter city. 
In the larger lava-streams, as at the “Three Kings,” Mount 
Smart, Mount Wellington etc., caves are very frequently found, 
which are in reality nothing but the results of great bubbles in 
the lava — occasioned probably by the generation of gases and 
vapors, as the hot mass rolled onward over marshy ground. 
Where the roof of such caves broke down , there are deep holes, 
such as those near Onehunga, called the “grotto” and “pond,” 
which have been mistaken for points of eruption or crater-sinkings. 
