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separate the sterile pumicestone plain from the wood-clad Patetere 
plateau. 
The Waikato, after leaving Lake Taupo, shapes its course North- 
East for a distance of fifteen to twenty miles, flowing through a 
broad, terraced valley on the boundary of the Kaingaroa plain. 
It is not until after the junction of the Pueto river, below the Pali 
Tetakapo, that the river turns in a keen bend toward. Northwest, 
and enters the mountainous region at Mount Whakapapataringa. 
In a deep gorge with numerous rapids the river breaks through the 
mountains, emerging again near Maungatautari into the broad plain 
of the middle Waikato -basin. 
Along the whole distance from Lake Taupo to Maungatautari 
the river is innavigable on account of its numerous rapids. The 
land on both sides consists of tracliytic tuff, of pumicestone and of 
partly vitreous, partly crystalline rhyolithic lavas, the flow and ex- 
tent of which is to be traced to the volcanic centre of the Ton- 
gariro and Ruapahu mountains. While the deep terraced valleys 
are the result of a long continued erosion by water, we see, on 
the other hand , the effects of the volcanic fire displayed in an 
immense number of hot springs, in which the country abounds. 
If we suppose two parallel lines to be drawn from Lake Taupo, 
touching its East- and West-shores and extending in a N. E. direc- 
tion as far as the Bay of Plenty, then these two lines, including 
the range of hills and mountains situated between the Kaingaroa 
plain and the wooded Patetere plateau, border likewise the space, 
upon which from more than thousand places hot vapours arise, 
calling forth all those phenomena of boiling springs, fumaroles, 
mud-volcanoes and solfataras, for which the North Island of New 
Zealand, and especially the “Lake District,” are so remarkable. 
The southernmost point of this wonderful zone of hot springs, 
which by far exceeds all others in the world in variety and extent, 
is the Tongariro volcano with its solfataras and the northern end 
is marked by the ever steaming Island of Whakari in the Bay of 
Plenty, a distance of 120 seamiles. 1 
1 Even the natives have very correctly brought the hot springs directly in 
