ROTORUA HOT SPRINGS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1073, 20 February 1883, Page 3

ROTORUA HOT SPRINGS.

Referring to the Hot Springs at Rotorua, a writer alludes to them as follows ;—There is a pool of opaque water, strongly impregnated with various minerals’ It is named the White Sulphur Bath. The gas that rises from its surface is said to bo similar to laughing gas. ‘Painkiller’ is the name given to an adjoining pool. As a hath it is credited with several remarkable cures. Unfortunately it kills as well as euros, and miight with equal propriety he termed the ‘ Man KiUer,’ for a poor fellow who went too near tho friahle brink of the boiling pool, to adjust the flow into tho bath, slipped in; he scrambled out, but tho bank again gave way, and though he again dragged himself out and staggered home to the hotel, when his underclothing was removed, his skin came with it, and ho died in a few days. A little farther along the shore is a barren patch of ground containing innumerable openings bubbling up with water. Sulphur cups are found ranging from one to twelve inches in diameter. The temperature of the water in most of these cups is low, though it occasionally reaches the boiling point. They all seem to he boiling ; the eye cannot distinguish the hot from the cold ; the boiling ones may, however, he readily detected by in- - sorting a finger. The cups themselves are formed of clay and sulphur, in over-vary-ing proportions, in some case nearly pure clay, in others nearly pure sulphur. Close by are others called • Cream Cups/ and another the ‘ Coffee Pot.’ The appearance of these liquids is certainly that of cream and coffee ; but the odors they emit do not tempt the visitors to taste. In the immediate neighborhood of the sights, the Government has built a bathing establishment, where two kinds of baths may be obtained. One ‘ Pukunitanga,’ is also known as the Priest’s Bath, from the circumstance of a priest having bathed in it a couple of hours daily, for three months, (hereby effecting a perfect cure of a bad case of'chronic rheumatism ; the other hath, ‘ Whangipipiro/ is commonly known as Madam Rachel’s Bath, from the reputed effect its mineral constituents have on tho complexion of persistent bathers, in making them ‘ beautiful for ever.’