SHOAL BAY AND DEEP WATER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 171, 19 July 1907, Page 3

SHOAL BAY AND DEEP WATER.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—l should not be surprised if we discover that Shoal Bay is filled with mud, some hundreds or thousands of feet deep. I am of opinion that when Rangitoto was thrown up, the ground where Lake Takapuna now stand's fell in and Shoal Bay subsided at the same time, or likely at a previous date. In fact, what is now Shoal Bay may have been land as high and bold as Stanley Point on the Waiteniata frontage.

When the land fell into the cavity made by Rangitoto and years of previous burning of combustible material below, the seawater of the Waitemata rushed through and put out the fires. The mud coming down from above Kauri Point would be carried into what is now Shoal Bay, and the cavity filled up to its present level. The North Head and Mount Victoria came from below at an earlier date, and Mount Victoria may have been the" chimney or safety valve which kept the fires burnin". Possibly the subsidence of Shoal Bay into the cavity burned by the Mount Victoria fires with the inrush of salt water caused an explosion which drove up the cinders of which Rangitoto is formed. Lake Takapuna being connected with Rangitoto, and supplied by the rain falling on Rangitoto, cannot be filled up in the way that Shoal Bay was filled, with mud, but should the presence of mud and harder substances choke up the channel between the lake and Kangitoto, the lake would become a stagnant pool.—l am, etc., A. SANFORD.