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the world, nor is there any thing that even bears any resemblance to them.

9. On the Rotorua lake the intermittent boiling springs of Whaka-rewarewa are the most interesting. Waikite, the principal “nga wha,” issues from the top of a siliceous cone some 20 feet high, and is surrounded by several smaller geysirs, boiling mud-pools, and solfataras. At intervals of considerable length, sometimes extending to many months, all these “nga whas” begin to play together and form a scene which must be most wonderful and beautiful.

The hot springs of Ohinemutu form agreeable bathing-places, the fame of which is already established.

10. The last in the line are the great solfataras on the pumice-stone plateau between Rotorua and Rotoid — such as P’hitere and Ruahine.

I will now say a few words in explanation of these phenomena.

All the waters of the Springs are derived from atmospheric moisture, which, falling on the high volcanic plateau, permeates the surface and sinks into fissures. Taupo—the axis of which corresponds with the line of the Hot Springs—may also be considered as a vast reservoir, from which the lower springs are supplied. The water, sinking into the fissures, becomes heated by the still-existing volcanic fires. High-pressure steam is thus generated, which, together with the volcanic gases, decompose the trachytic rocks. The soluble substances are thus removed by the water, which is forced up by the expansive force of the steam and by hydrostatic pressure, in the shape of boiling springs. The insoluble substances form a residuum of white or red fumarole clay, of which the hills at Terapa round Rotomahana and the Pairoa consist.

All the New Zealand hot springs, like those of Iceland, Japan, and the Alps, and are to be divided into two distinct classes—the one alkaline, and the other acid. To the latter belong the solfataras characterised by deposits of sulphur, and never forming intermittent fountains. All the intermittent springs belong to the alkaline class, in which are also included the most of the ordinary boiling springs. Sulphurets of Potash and Soda, and Carbonates of the Silica, which, on the cooling and evaporation of the water, is deposited in such quantities as to form a striking characteristic in the appearance of these springs.

Here I must leave this interesting subject. To enter more deeply into the theory of these phenomena would be out of place here. It may be, however, well to mention that numerous facts prove that the action which gives rise to the hot springs is slowly diminishing.

I must also state my conviction that ere long these hot springs will be visited by many travellers, not only for the sake of their beauty and interest, but also for the medicinal virtues they have been proved to possess. Already many Europeans have bathed in, and derived benefit from, the warm waters at Orakeikorako and Rotomahana.

I am unwilling to omit the interesting legend current among the Natives in reference to the origin of these hot springs. The legend, as told by Te Heuheu, the great chief on the Taupo lake, is the following:

The great Chief Ngatiroirangi, after his arrival at Maketu at the time of the immigration of the Maories from Hawaiki, set off with his slave Ngauruhoe to visit the interior, and, in order to obtain a better view of the country, they ascended the highest peak of Tongariro. Here they suffered severely from cold, and the Chief shouted to his sisters on Whakari (White Island) to send him some fire. They did. They sent on the sacred fire they brought from Hawaiki, by the taniwhas Pepe and Te Haata, through an underground passage to the top of Tongariro. The fire arrived just in time to save the life of the Chief, but poor Ngauruhoe was dead when the Chief turned to give him the fire. On this account the hole through which the fire made its appearance—the active crater of Tongariro—is called to this day by the name of the slave Ngauruhoe; and the sacred fire still burns within the whole underground passage along which it was carried from Whakari to Tongariro.

This legend affords a remarkable instance of the accurate observation of the Natives, who have thus indicated the true line of the chief volcanic action in this island.

Having now described the older and more extensive volcanic phenomena of the interior, I proceed to notice the later phenomena of volcanic action in the immediate neighbourhood of Auckland.

THE AUCKLAND VOLCANIC DISTRICT.

The Isthmus of Auckland is completely perforated by volcanic action, and presents a large number of true volcanic hills, which, although extinct and of small size, are perfect models of volcanic mountains. These hills—once the funnels out of which torrents of burning lava were vomited forth, and afterwards the strongholds of savage cannibals—are now the ornaments of a happy land, the home of peaceful settlers, whose fruitful gardens and smiling fields derive their fertility from the substances long ago thrown up from the fiery bowels of the earth.

My Geological Map of the Auckland District contains no less than sixty points of volcanic eruption within a radius of ten miles—the variety of which, together with the regularity of their formations, gives very great interest to this neighbourhood. The newer volcanic hills round Auckland are distinguished from the older ones in the interior, not only by their age, but by the different character of their lava—the older being trachytic, while the Auckland are all basaltic.—I have not yet mentioned the difference between Trachyte and Basalt. I will therefore say a few words in explanation. This difference consists in the minerals of which the rocks are composed. Trachyte is composed of a mixture of glassy feldspar (Sanidin) and hornblende: obsidian and pumice-stone are the usual concomitants of