VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN THE NORTH ISLAND.

Kumara Times, Issue 3002, 17 June 1886, Page 2

VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN THE NORTH ISLAND.

ONE HUNDRED PERSONS ENTOMBED. PINK AND WHITE TERRACES DISAPPEARED. MAGNITUDE OF THE ERUPTION. [from our own correspondent.] Wellington, June 16. The news from the Rotorua district confirms the deplorable fact that over one hundred persons have perished, and that the beautiful Pink and White Terraces have for ever disappeared, and that the country for miles has bpen made desolate. The full effects of the catastrophe have not yet been felt, and the colony has sustained a great national loss. The volumes of steam, lava, and mud have been ascertained to reach four miles in height, with a circumference of fully three miles, and places one hundred and fifty miles away have been corered with three inches of dust. The Government are saving no expense in gtving relief to the suffering settlers. »•*- DR. HECTOR'S VIEWS. WAIROA TO BE ABANDONED. CAUSE OF THE OUTBREAK. FURTHER DISASTERS FEARED. [united press association.] j Rotorua, June 14. Dr. Hector and pa> ty returned from Wairoa to-day. He has ordered Wairoa to be abandoned, and the present road closed and another road made further south, via Xaiteiria. Rain is imminent, and he considers that if it rains, the mud and ashes will become fluid, and slip down the slopes in enormous mud glaciers, making the whole country impassable. He thinks it dangerous to life to attempt to remove any goods from Wairoa, so it is a total loss for all the unfortunate residents. He considers the outbreak local, that it began on Tarawera, on account of there being no vent for the steam, aud that the latter became stipeiheated and blew pan of ih e top away. He also considers that the

earthquake caused by this mighty effort cracked the pipes formed by the work of ages through which the water came from below to the terraces and hot springs ; that the water then getting deep down, burst up the country for ten miles-southwest of'Tarawera, and caused cracks through which we now see steam escaping/ He states that there is- no it is nothing but an exaggerated outhuist of superheated steam - that the cinders, heated red-hotT-'by superheated steam, were thrown up by Tarawera, while the mud and ashes came from Rotoraahana. Mr Park,: his assistant, saw stones thyown up 500 .feet from the craters near Rotomahana. Captain Mair. : and’ several others lowered two boats down the cliff with ropes, and went towards Te Ariki by water to try to rescue the Natives, if any were still living. They are now on Lake Tarawera, and are expected back 10-night. Dr. Hector has arranged an alternative means of escape. If rain falls he thinks will ,rise from the volume of mud, and the watpr will re-open the old creek ..that ran from it through Wairoa and wash the whole of the Wairoa flat into Tarawera Lake. The Wairoa road is so cut up by traffic that two men had to be pulled out by force and two horses have died exhausted. Another native, an. old woman, has just been dug out of a.back gully near Wairoa, alive and well, and will survive. MR. FROUDE ON THE PINK AND WHITE TERRACES. Mr Fronde, in his new book, entitled “Oceania,” wrote in most enthusiastic terms of the beauties of this region. We quote the following charming account of what he saw, standing on one of the upper basins of the terrace, and looking down into it depths:— “We could stand on the brim and gaze as through an opening in the earth into an azure of infinity beyond. Down and down, and fainter and softer as they receded, the white crystals projected from the rocky walla over the abyss till they seemed to dissolve, not into darkness, but into light. The hue of the water was something which I had never seen, and shall never again see on this side of eternity. Not°the violet, not the harebell (nearest in its lint to heaven of all nature’s flowers), not the turquoise, not sapphire, not the unfathomable aether itself could convey to one who had not looked on it a sense <>f that supernatural loveliness. Comparison could only soil such inimitable purity. The only colour I ever saw in sky or on earth in the least resembling the aspect of this extraordinary pool was the flame of burning sulphur. Here- was a bath if mortal flesh could have home a dive into it ! Had it been in Norway we should have seen far down the- floating Lorelei inviting us 10 plunge, and leave life and all belonging to it for such a home and such companionship. It was a bath for the gods, and not for man. Artemis and her nymphs should have been swimming there, and we Actseons daring our fate to gaze on them.”