NEW LAKE AT ROTORUA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 304, 22 December 1903, Page 3

NEW LAKE AT ROTORUA.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

ROTORUA, this day. A new lake has been discovered in the district by Mr Da rev Irwine., who has been surveying a block of land here. The land surrounding The lake has mostly subsided, and a large number of trees are submerged. There are two streams leading from the lake, which find an outlet in oue of the earthquake fissures. Although the discovery has just been made there is reason to believe t\m lake was formed when Waimangu was formed. The particulars available at present describe the lake as being of great size, so much so that it is not possible to gauge its dimensions without measurement by surveys and it appears to have a considerable depth. It seems to have been formed a very considerable time ago by a subsidence in the land over £. large area, and there are partially submerged forests of rimu. rata and tawa visible in the water, their tops protruding out of the body of the lake. The depth also appe.irs great, but there were no means at the time of the discovery of finding out the average or the gTeatest deptn a.t any part. The lake is fed by a bush stream, which, has its origin far away in the bush in probably some spring, and the outflow comes from a break in the eastern side of the depression. It comes out in a considerable volume, only to disappear into a volcanic fissure, thence flowing underground in an unknown channel, and never again emerging within visible distance of the lake. The lake, which is about fourteen miles from Rotorua, is to be surveyed in the ordinary way for Government purposes -is (ion as possible. The newly-found lake, though a large sheet of water, does not seem to be known to thp local natives at all. It is in the centre of the MangarewaKahewa block, recently purchased by the Government from the natives for settlement and it wa.s in the course of his survey of -the land that Mr D'Arcy Trvine, purveyor in the Rotorua district, the lake. It is close by the lamous Mangarewa Gorge on the road from Tauranga to Rotorua.