SAVE THE CONES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 603, 4 March 1929, Page 14

SAVE THE CONES

PRESERVING VOLCANIC BEAUTY TOUR OF THE ISTHMUS A 50-mile tour around the points of former volcanic activity on the Tamaki Isthmus was made on Saturday afternoon by members of the Town-Planning Association. The tour was organised by the Association’s sub-committee handling the beautification and preservation of the volcanic cones around the city and was directed by Mr. G. M. Fowlds, chairman of the committee, and Messrs. Preston. Chambers and Browne, members of the committee. The Inspecting party included Mrs. Nellie Ferner, of the Play Association: Miss Alice Hasten, of the City Council: and Mr. T. Walsh, secretary of the New Zealand Tourist League. Mount Albert was first visited. Its symmetrical cone was once 470 ft high, but quarrying activities by the Railway Department have whittled it away. The mountain’s heart has been eaten out and the thin shell of scoria left around the quarry cavity is only of seeming solidity. The department, under pressure of public opinion, has ceased pulling down the cone, and is now engaged in cleaning up, preparatory to handing over the area to the Mount Albert Borough, which has a scheme for a children’s playground in the interior of the hill. Few know that a properly laid-out sports ground now exists on the floor of the old natural crater at the summit.

The local body lias a plan for carrying a motor roadway around the mountain’s breast, but the idea did not appeal to the inspecting party on Saturday, which considered that less damage \vould be done and more facilities afforded by carrying the present summit road right across the hill to the main road on the opposite side. Mount Albert has been attacked on three sides by quarry men; the Railway Department had 93 acres; the Mount Albert Borough 11 acres, while tt private quarrying concern operates on the southward slopes. Mount Roskill, with a huge slice CLit diagonally from its slopes, was passed en route to the Three Kings; one of these hills has been annihilated; another has been attacked by both public and private enterprise. The Big King is still intact and may be gifted to the public.

People of One Tree Hill have sought the association’s aid in securing a reprieve for Mount Smart. This hill carries the name of an officer in the first defence force brought in 1849; the native name was Rarotonga. It was originally vested in the Onehunga Domain Board as a recreation reserve. Driven from Mount Albert, the Railway Department has entrenched at Mount Smart and Wiri Hill. Practically half of Mount Smart has been removed.

By Mangere Mountain the tour continued to Ihumatao; passing Waitomokia, another volcano in a saucer, its terraced sides and stone parapets still as the natives abandoned them. At the nose of Mata-oho are three hills; Puke-iti (the baby hill), Otautau and Maunga Taketake. The latter is still intact, but thousands of tons of scoria have been taken from Otautau.

Hurrying through Papatoetoe an examination was made of the yet unbroken Smales Hill. A little way further on is Green Mountain, where the Manukau County has cleft almost half the hill off.

The inspection was for the two-fold purpose of acquainting members with the topography of the isthmus and of obtaining first-hand knowledge of the extent to which many cones have been already destroyed.