256 
expects to produce excellent wine within a few years. Lake Pupuke 
is a fresh-water lake of “unfathomable depth/ 5 as I was told. 1 
therefore requested Captain Burgess , the pilot of Auckland Harbour, 
to measure the depth with his sounding apparatus. The greatest 
depth in the middle of the lake amounted to 28 fathoms, so that 
the bottom ot the lake lies 140 to 150 feet below the level of the 
sea , from which the lake is separated only by a very narrow ridge, 
a part of the crater-frame. The lake fills the crater-basin of a 
gently sloping tuff-cone, rising only about 100 feet above the level 
of the sea and consisting of layers with a regular outward dip. 
On the steep inner crater- wall here and thoro basaltic dykes appear 
and on the Eastside of the cone larger masses of basaltic lava, 
dating from real lava-streams , are forming cliffs jutting far into 
the sea. In these lava-masses there are said to be caves full of 
human skeletons , memorials of the former outrages in the wars of 
the natives. Pupuke is the largest and deepest among the num- 
erous tuff-craters in the vicinity of Auckland, and the question is 
justly asked, whence the lake, situated upon a low isthmus, derives 
its water-supply. Is it not natural to think of the opposite Ran- 
gitoto mountain, separated from Lake Pupuke only by a branch 
ot the sea four miles wide, the highest among the lava and scorise- 
cones of Auckland? The natives assert that the Rangitoto was 
taken out of Lake Pupuke ; but we say , that Lake Pupuke obtains 
its water from the extensive lava-fields of the Rangitoto by means 
of subterraneous or rather submarine channels. 
Hundreds of wild-ducks were swimming on the lake; it is 
also said to be abounding in all kinds of fish, especially eels. On 
the shore we fished interesting fresh-water shells and fresh-water 
plants out of the water , 1 and the wood furnished us many a beau- 
1 Prof. Alexander Braun in Berlin, whom I sent specimens of those plants, 
writes to me as follows: u They belong to Nilella hyalina (Ohara 1). 0), first found 
at the Lake of Geneva, by and bye in various places of southern Europe, also in 
Belgium and, in somewhat deviating forms, in Middle Asia, the East Indies, northern 
Africa, at (he Cape of Good Hope, and in the warmer North America, to which 
New Zealand has of late added its variety of Nova * Zdand'ac , differing from the Euro- 
pean form by its smaller stature, larger seeds (sporangies) and very delicate points 
of its leaves. 
