5

H.—26

the bather feel like getting out again with immense celerity, here he is " lapped in the Elysium " of the delicious wave, at a temperature somewhere about 110°, and would be contented to stay there for any number of hours that circumstances might permit. The other terrace, Otukapuarangi, commonly known as the Pink Terrace, from its soft salmoncolour, well described by Trollope, lies at the opposite side of the lake. It is, except in the particular of colour, less remarkable than the Tarata, being of much smaller dimensions, and presenting fewer facilities for bathing purposes. It has, however, three cisterns immediately below the great boiling puia, which afford three varities of temperature, all pretty warm, and which have space enough for a considerable number of bathers at once. Immediately beyond the Great White Terrace, and all along the shore of the lake, and for a distance of some hundred yards back from it, up the broken hill side, there is a vast supply of active volcanic force in various forms of development. Conspicuous among these is the great Ngahapu or Ohopia, a rock-girt circular basin 30 or 40 feet wide, in which a violent geyser of boiling heat is constantly boiling up to a height of 10 or 15 feet, enveloped in a perpetual cloud of steam. This great puia ever roaring, snorting, hissing, and heaving, and surrounded with gaping fissures, from which dense clouds of steam ceaselessly exhale, contains an unlimited supply of boiling water, which might by artificial channels be made to supply many baths. There are, besides these, hundreds of other outbreaks of hot water and steam on the overhanging hill side. Sighing fountains, grunting fountains, fountains of mud, lucid fountains, fumaroles, and funnels, every imaginable indication of the " ignes suppositi cineri doloso" which seem to lie but a few inches of the fragile crust below the traveller's foot. The whole lake of Botomahana is warm, as its name implies, and the creek which flows from it into Tarawera is full of hot springs every here and there. I have endeavoured in this imperfect sketch which I have given (and for the details of which I am much indebted to Hochstetter, correcting my own less careful observation,) to draw the attention of the Government to the great value of the sanitary provision which nature has made in the district described. I think the time has come when something practical might be done to utilize that provision. At present, the difficulty of travelling in the hot spring country, and the almost entire absence of accommodation for invalids, prevents more than a very small number of persons from visiting it, either for healthj recreation, or curiosity. Tet it might be, and is probably destined to be, the sanatorium not only of the Australian Colonies, but of India and other portions of the globe. The country in which the hot springs are is almost worthless for agricultural or pastoral, or any similar purposes; but when its sanitary resources are developed, it may prove a source of great wealth to the colony. And not only so, but it may be the means of alleviating much human misery, and relieving thousands from their share of the ills that flesh is heir to. Portions of it might be appropriated to the use of public hospitals, asylums for the insane, or the inebriate, and it might not be impossible to concentrate there all the institutions usually established by Government, or private enterprise, for the relief of the sick, the destitute, and the incurable.' Other portions might be thrown open to private enterprise, which might be invited to undertake the work of establishing hydropathic resorts, and even aided by the Government to do so. The essential first step would be to obtain, by purchase from the Natives, the ownership of all the principal groups I have described. Then let one or two localities be selected (say Ohinemutu and Tapuaeharuru) suitable for a hydropathic establishment. Get some "expert" acquainted with the bathing establishments of Europe, such as Levhrenbath, Pffeifi'ers, Ben Ehydding, Malvern, or the like. Let him examine the country with a practical eye, and suggest what requires to be done. Let the Government then do it, or assist somebody else to do it, by guaranteeing the dividends of a company, or otherwise. What is required is simply practical skill enough to make water run in pipes where it is wanted, and capital enough to provide accommodation for those who may desire to avail themselves of it. The engineer who designed the baths of Caracalla or Nero cannot now be got; but I doubt not that there are tradesmen to be met with, of much humbler pretensions, who, if employed by the Government to suggest and execute the work to be done, would soon enable it to see its way towards the desired result. • I have, Ac, The Hon. the Premier. William Fox. By Authority: Gbobgb Didsbury, Government Printer, Wellington.—lß74. Price Gd.]