MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 December 1940, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

GEOLOGICAL CURIOSITIES. (Recorded by J.H.S., of Palmerston North, for the “Times-Age.”) Geologists of 100 years ago agreed upon a strange and interesting feature not since mentioned in the historic records of New Zealand. “At one era the North consisted of three islands since united about the Bay of Islands, also near Auckland, and again by a large inset of the sea between White Island and Mount Egmont. The evidence of this is given in numerous bays and inland lakes around the margins of which pohutukawa is still growing, the only places where it was flourishing away from the salt spray. Taupo, Tongariro, Rotomahana, Rotorua and White Island are unrivalled geological curiosities. At the buried village of Te Rapa, on Lake Taupo, basaltic rocks are seen changing into soft clay by heat and chemical action. Where the Tongariro River falls into the lake, pumice stone and other deposits are lessening the size of this inland sea. Geysers ejecting water two degrees above boiling point with silica in solution are around the lakes.” Wakari or White Island is an interesting sight. It is three miles round, 860 feet at its summit, with a boiling spring 100 feet across. Around the edge are steam geysers which throw up stones like gun shots. Volumes of steam like a huge white cloud gave it the name Koromanu (steam) and White Island. Captain Drury found that the sea half a mile from the island is 2000 fathoms deep. The whole island is uncomfortably hot, and is covered with immense stores of crystallised sulphur. Maori legends of Mount Egmont and Ruapehu point to an original waterway between them.