TE RANGITUMAU

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 December 1940, Page 6

TE RANGITUMAU

VOLCANIC MAORI FORTRESS ■ REGION. (By N.J.8.) From the base of its trigonometical apex. Mt. Te Rangitumau has an altitude above sea-level of a mere 1883 feet; yet this affords to its few climbers an unsurpassed view of all the Wairarapa Valley plains, and the hills on east and west.

To amateur geologists and mineralogists,’ the whole surrounding country affords a close-at-hand field of fairly baffling exploit, whilst astronomers, in particular (if camped there) could not find a better base. These, between them, could, with a little well-ordered research, give this district the scienti-* fic attention it so well deserves. Artists may find, in ,the adjoining lovely road and hillside scenery (with old-time homesteads scattered here and there), new delights. I have frequently pondered upon the volcanic (steam-honeycombed) inclined monoliths found near the ruins of the once stout-timbered trig on Mt. Rangitumau’s summit, only later to discover, in Professor Geikie’s small illustrated volume on geology (page 108) .... “Wherever, therefore, strata are pushed up or let down more at one place than another, without actually being broken across,, they must be thrown into an inclined position. Now this unequal and irregular kind of movement has taken place many times in every quarter of the globe. If you look at the stratified rocks, in most parts of England and other countries,‘ you will seldom find them flat —usually they are inclined, sometimes gently, sometimes steeply, so that they have not only been upheaved out of the sea but have been moved irregularly and unequally . ...” So much for the lifestory of Mt. Te Rangitumau’s weirdlooking “Stonehenge” within whose suh-shadows I have often rested, yet would not care to spend the night alone, if some less “tapu” place could be used for a camping ground. Not far from these (on a cliffside Maori burial-ground, time-and-man-neglected over a fairly long period of years), are sleeping their last sleep those who, if living could tell us (from oral traditions handed down to them by still earlier local tribesmen) what part these monoliths played, in either periods of peace or war. when the Te Rangitumau region was first chosen as the site of an almost impregnable fortress. That the stout courage of its ancient warrior-defenders was equal to the often perilous needs of the hour, when nomadic, marauding tribes from distant parts were on investigating tours, goes without saying. Of what actually led to its dismantlement, however (seismic disturbance, rapine, war, or fire), little is known today. That sporadic warfare had taken place on the Cameron hills not far away, is, on the o.ther hand, more generally known. Again to quote Professor Geikie (page 121) "... . When a-historian

betakes himself to write the history of a country, his first care is to make himself acquainted with all the scattered documents likely to throw light upon the transactions which he will have to describe. He ransacks the papers in the public archives and libraries, gleans what he can from printed books, and even it may be travels into foreign countries in search of contemporary writing which may explain what is dark or uncertain at home. Only after prolonged labour of this kind, is he able to gather up the sum of all he has learnt, and to weave it into a continuous narrative .... Now, what it true of the historian of any country, is true also of the geologist .... A geologist may be called a historian of the earth.

His great aim is to collect all the evN donee which remains of the changes that have happened upon the earth’s surface, and to arrange them in the order in which they have occurred, so as to show the grand march of events down to the present time.” Take note, you older students attending Wairarapa College, who are the ones wo look to. to provide such lasting records, of either kind, for eager future generations to read.