408 
erected, in which we made ourselves at home as well as circum- 
stances would admit. I believe, however, that if we had not known 
that others before us had lived for weeks at that place, we should 
hardly have been induced to spend a single night there after a 
close examination of the spot. It is almost the same as livi 
mir in 
an active crater. Round about there is a continual seething and 
hissing and roaring and boiling, and the whole ground is warm. 
In the first night, the ground upon which I was lying, grew grad- 
ually so warm from below, despite the thick underlayer of ferns and 
despite the woollen blankets, that composed my bed, that I started 
from my couch unable to bear it any longer. To examine the tem- 
perature, 1 formed with my stick a hole into the soft clay soil, and 
placed the thermometer into the aperture. It rose at once to boil- 
ing-point; on taking it out again, hot steam came hissing out, so 
that I hastened to stop the hole up again. In reality the island 
Puai is nothing but a torn and fissured rock , which , boiled entirely 
soft in the warm lake, threatens every moment to fall to pieces. 
Hot water bubbles up all around partly above partly below the 
surface of the lake. On the South -side of the island is a boiling 
mud-pool ; blocks of silicious deposit , scattered about , point to large 
hot springs existing in former times , and even now-a-days hot steam 
escapes from numerous fissures. No fire is required here for cook- 
ing ; wherever we dug but a little into the ground , or cleared the 
existing crevices of the crusts formed on them, there we could 
cook our potatoes and meat by steam. In some places the crevices 
are covered with sulphurous crusts and a strong smell of sulphurous 
acid was observed; in other places I found under cakes of silicious 
deposit films of fibrous alum. East of Puai and separated from 
it by a channel only 40 feet wide, is a second island Pukura (red 
lump). It is of the same description as Puai, smaller in circum- 
ference , but higher by several feet , and has likewise several huts, 
which some of my Maoris chose for their dwelling place. On these 
islands we had our headquarters during two days, and from them 
we undertook our excursions round the lake. 
I will give a brief account of my observations, describing the 
