STRANGE PHENOMENON.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2232, 23 April 1881, Page 4

STRANGE PHENOMENON.

Tbe Ohinemutu correspondent of the New Zealand "Herald," writing on April sth, gives the following acoount of a strange phenomenon whioh occurred in thatdietrictduring the previous week:—Visitors to the hot lakes will remember the lovely drive from Ohinemutu to the Wairoa, passing through about one mile of the prettiest bit of bush scenery in perhaps all New Zealand. Upon emerging from this leafy bower of tangled fern and moss-clad hoary trunks of mighty trees, a glimpse is caught of a dazzling sheet of deep sky-blue water nestling in a basin of fern* clad hills. It is the pretty romantic Tikitapu Lake, generally known as " the blue lake." Following the white sandy road by the margin of the lake, we oome to a thin uprising ridge of rock, from the summit of which we look down on to a fine stretching slatey-grey mass of water known as Botokakahi. The lake lies some 90ft lower than the blue lake, but no communication has ever been found between them. A few days ago this Botokakahi gradually turned a most peculiar, intense, vivid pea green color, and its temperature suddenly rose from about 60deg. to 90deg. Fahr., at the same time rising in its basin some 2ft in height. A small creek, generally as clear as crystal, runs from this lake through the English-like, pretty village of Wairoa, and, dashing in a sheet of pearly foam over the celebrated Wairoa falls, enters the waters of Like Tarawera. This stream, upon the rising of Botokakahi, became green, and discolored for some distance the waters of Tarawera. The Natives got somewhat alarmed, and a deputation of them, purchasing a quantity of candles, eat by the edge of the lake the whole of one night in expectation of seeing the water rise ana submerge their village. Many of them took to the hills for a refuge. Towards daybreak the waters subsided, and quietened their fears. One remarkable feature was the many thousands of dead and dying fish, which were swept down the creek, or cast gaping upon the shore. Carefully examining these fish, they present exactly the same appearance as those found floating dead on the East Ooast some twelve months ago, on which muoh disoursion took place. How to acoount for this freak of nature both Europeans and Natives are at a loss. Most likely the disturbances lately at White Island have extended far inland towards the Western Coast. About this time, too, many of the geysers both ct Botomahana and Whakarewarewa were unusually active. A dormant geyser on the banks of the Utuhina Creek, near Lake House Hotel at Ohinemutu, suddenly, at this time, threw up a column of water some thirty feet in height, and in a few minutes subsided. Some of the remote springs lying out at Sulphur Point show that about this time some unusual action was at work. Perhaps others of your correspondents may have met evidences of the same phenomena in their districts.