NGAURUHOE VERY ACTIVE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 482, 15 April 1909, Page 9

NGAURUHOE VERY ACTIVE.

"MAY BLOW ITS CONE OFF." (by telegraph—special correspondent.) Auckland, April 14. Ngauruhoe has been showing such energy during the past few days that there seems reason for the.fear that the outbursts are only a prelude to a greater manifestation of the Titanic forces at work. 'On Good Friday and Saturday the volcano was very active, and, on Easter Monday, somo of the greatest outbursts that have ever occurred there, were witnessed. Dr. iScott, ivlio has' just returned from a visit to jNgauruhoe, states that, .tho eruption on Monday was on a colossal scale, far eclipsing the eruptions of the previous week and of last mouth. Ho also expressed the opinion that it would not be surprising if the volcano blew its cone olf, and scattered volcanic ejecta for a hundred miles. A Air.- Wilson, who, with several others, climbed the volcano oil Good Friday, says: "On reaching the edgo of the crater (ve found the mountain sending up a dense column of smoke for fully 100U feet, tho smoke, 011 reaching that height, then being blown south fast. It- was a magnificent sight, but such as one could not look at without a feeling of awe. We endeavoured to look down into tho crater,' but we were tillable to see anything, tho smoke being sc dense; We remained there for half-an : houi .watching, and, on sovornl occasions, saw tho volcano shoot up showers of small stones for 100 feet, the stones falling back intc the crater again. One of our party, Mr. A, M'Dougall, had an exciting experience, While standing on a prominence he was sud. deiily enveloped in a rlenso cloud of smoke which completely obliterated him from view, and, when the smoke clcared away again his features , were so black that, wo .coukl hardly recognise him. Tho mountain, no! long before • we-went up, must have 'beer ejecting larger stones,-for we saw the marks of them 011 the edges, of the crater just as though heavy objects had landed thoro re cently, and had rolled down tho moif-it-ii] side. While wo tfero on top we hoard low rumblings coming from nway down in th< crater. It was just as weir for us'thai we started the descent when wo did. Oi getting to tho foot of the mountain W( heard a number of very loud explosions jusi Idee the reports of hundreds of cannon goiiH olf at once, and, 011 . looking up, wo saw huge clouds' of steam issuing from 'craclti in tho mountain side." In coming down wi also noticed that tho river, which had beei running down the sidi> of tho mountain 1 month before, had disappeared, its bed bo ing a mass of hugo boulders which wori completely dry. We also saw chasm' 1 measuring 20 leot wide to .10 feet in dcptl ■ running off into the bed of the creek ■