THE GEOLOGY OF AUCKLAND. 
29 
cinders and ashes, I often slid down again several feet. There 
was no snow on the cone of the mountain, unless in some cre¬ 
vices to which the sun’s rays did not penetrate. There was not 
on the cone any vegetation, not even the long wiry grass which 
grows in scanty patches up to the very base of the cone. The 
ascent of the cone took me, I should think, four hours at least , 
but as I had no watch, it is possible from the laborious occupa¬ 
tion I was at, that the ascent of the cone looked longer than it 
was. But whether it was three or four hours I was clambering 
np the cone I recollect I hailed with delight the mouth of the 
great chimney up which I had been toiling. The sun had just 
begun to dip, and I thought it might be about 1 p.m., so that I 
had ascended the mountain from the Kotoaire lake m about 
eight hours. I must confess, as I had scarcely any food with 
me, that I kept pushing on at a good pace. On the top oi 
Tongariro I expected to behold a magnificent prospect, but the 
day was now cloudy, and I could see no distance. The crater is 
nearly circular, and from afterwards measuring with the eye a 
piece of ground about the same size, I should think it was six 
hundred yards in diameter. The lip of the crater was sharp : 
outside there was almost nothing but loose cinders and ashes ; 
inside of the crater there were large overhanging rocks of a pale 
yellow colour, evidently produced by the sublimation of sulphur. 
The lip of the crater is not of equal height all round, but I think 
I could have walked round it. The southern side is the highest, 
and the northern, where I stood, the lowest. There was no 
possible way of descending the crater. I stretched out my neck 
and looked down the fearful abyss which lay gaping before me, 
but my sight was obstructed by large clouds of steam or vapour, 
and I don’t think I saw thirty feet down. I dropped into the 
crater several large stones, and it made me shudder to hear some 
of them rebounding as I supposed from rock to rock—of some 
of the stones thrown in I heard nothing. There was a low 
murmuring sound during the whole time I was at the top, such 
as you hear at the boiling springs at Botomahana and Taupo, 
and which is not unlike the noise heard in a steam engine room 
when the engine is at work. There was no eruption of water 
or ashes during the time I was there, nor was there any aj>pear- 
ance that there had been one lately. T saw no lava which had 
