FORMER VOLCANIC OUTBREAKS. This the First Eruption of Mount Tarawera, Wellington, June 11.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 157, 19 June 1886, Page 6

FORMER VOLCANIC OUTBREAKS. This the First Eruption of Mount Tarawera, Wellington, June 11.

Wellington, I have just been talking with Mr Locke, member for the East Coast, who has kindly given me come particulars of consider* able interest at the present time. From* him I gather that though th« country around Kotorua is of volcanic pumice, and there can be therefore no doubt about its origin, there is no] Maori tradition whatever about the volcanio charactei ot Mount Tarawera. Mr Lake is convinced that within the memory of man there hat been no eruption of that mount. The legends and traditions of the Maoris, Mr Locke says, reach back to a period of remote antiquity. For instance, the} have a tradition that the Manukau Harbouj was once a lake. Accompanying thii thera is no mention of a volcanic disturbance, but it has been fairly well established that the hills between the Manukau and Waitemata were visited by volcanic action, the Manukau in consequence bursting the barrier between it and the ocean ; and there is a tradition that assigns the origin of Lake Taupo to a sudden depression of a great area of the Taupo Plain. There are traditions, moreover, of the activity of many volcanoes now extinct. It is a fair inference therefore that the outburst at Tarawora makes th&t mount a volcano for the first time. Within the memory of man, there haa been only one dietuib , when the villago of Ooinemutu disappeared suddenly into the Lake. On that occasion there was no less of life, as the Maoris, whose bodies were submerged, quickly swam ashore.