ANCIENT WHITE TERRACE.

Kumara Times, Issue 3105, 15 October 1886, Page 3

ANCIENT WHITE TERRACE.

The London correspondent of the Auckland Herald writes:—The recent destruction of the Pink and White Terraces in your colony has drawn from a traveller in Asia Minor an account of an ancient White Terrace which he saw near the ruins of Hierapolis. The hot springs which have formed this terrace are situated on a low branch of the Misongis Mountains overlooking the Lycus Plain, and the ruins of Laodicea, in ancient Caria. First seen from the opposite mountains, some twenty miles off, the terrace looked .like a breastplate of silver on the mountain side. The writer says :—" A nearer investigation showed that it was formed by hot springs of sulphur and lime,..which descended from a great elevation in dazzling white cataracts, and formed in their passage downwards by their petrifying power ice-like cliffs and seemingly frozen waterfalls, running into natural basins of beautiful, and varied geometrical shapes, all stalactite covered petrifications of fantastic forms. On the high plateau whence the springs descend are the ruins of.a temple once appropriately dedicated to Pluto. The holy hot bath which stood in the temple court-yard, surrounded by a colonnade, is still in preservation, ami beneath its deep clear blue waters can still be seen many a flu ed column and finely carved cornice. Gas is continually bubbling up fiom the bottom of the bath. The chief source, of ihe sulphur springs (the ancient Plutonium) is a cave, from which a vapour issues fatal to animal life. This was considered a short cut to Pluto's infernal realms. Not far off is a ruined fountain and cistern, near to a cave of sweet water, which supplied the whole town with that necessary of life."