WAIAPU AND THE OIL SPRINGS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4253, 6 November 1874, Page 3

WAIAPU AND THE OIL SPRINGS.

(From the Poverty Say Herald.)' The country about this neighborhood-is of the richest and most attractive character. The valley is a broad alluvial flat, narrowing gradually as it extends inland, and all the lower part of it is equal to the best cultivated pastures. A well-known dignitary of the church has somewhere recorded his opinion that there is scarcely an acre of land at Waiapu fit for European occupation. Not an acre fit for European, occupation ! Why, there are thousands and thousands of acres all round, any two or three hundred of which would be a competence for. life to an industrious settler, and two or three thousand of which would be a small fortune. While at Waiapu, I took the opportunity of riding up" the valley as far as the oil springs. To that spot and back is a fair day's ride. The first five or six miles of the road lies through country such as I have described, with here and there native plantations. It has, no doubt, all been under cultivation by natives at one period or another, and it is to tlu's circumstance that the fact of its being so well grassed is to be attributed. The native population must have been, at one period, very large indeed there. *At Pukemaire, on the northern side of the valley—the scene of an important engagement in the campaign of 1865—tradition says that there was once a pa of such extent that children born at one end grew up _to manhood without becoming acquainted with those who lived at the other. On the right of the Waiapu valleys, as we ride inland, other valleys, the Peoe and Purapura stretch away northwards. They contain a considerable extent of level and fertile country. Passing inland from Pukemaire, we come to a new building, not yet quite finished, which is an hotel, being erected by Major Ropata in anticipation of the opening of the oilsprings, and the influx of popidation that will ensue. The valley at this point narrows considerably, and at the same time a good deal of the flats are of a poorer character than those lower down. A ride of about another hour or so, brings us "to a point where the flats terminate, and undulating country—to all appearance of a high degree of fertility—commences, and stretches away as far as the eye can reach to the base of Hikurangi. At the base of the first lull, we tied up our horses, and in the course of a few minutes' walk through the fern, reached the oilsprings. As there was a sea-breeze blowing, and we approached them from inland, they made their presence felt to the organs of Bmell some time before we could see precisely what they were like. The appearance they present is different in some respects from that of the springs at Tauranga. The latter are situated at some distance from each other, whereas the Waiapu ones are all grouped close together. There is a bare space of ground on the hill side, about twenty or twenty-three feet square, which is thickly dotted all over with holes about half a foot in diameter, filled with water, through which gas and oil are continually bubbling up to the surface. Most of the holes are covered with a red scum which is in the petroleum, and one or two of them contain oil almost exclusively. After a long duration of fine weather, petroleum would be found there in greater abundance than when I visited the springs. The manner in which the springs came to be discovered was by, the natives observing after a fern fire that there was a spot on the hill which kept on burning for several days. There are several other spots in the neighborhood where the ground is burnt, and where petroleum likewise exists. It seems almost certain, indeed, that the whole country as far as the East Cape is oil-bearing. In behind Tokomaru there are oil or gas springs, and springs have likewise been discovered by the natives at Kawakawa.