IN THE EARTHQUAKE ZONE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 160, 8 July 1922, Page 13

IN THE EARTHQUAKE ZONE.

"H OF INSPECTIO, b.>, ...jcNCE AT WHAKAIPO. (By lIENRY BATESO>~.) (All Rights Reserved.) It is not generally known that although the Taiipo earthquakes have done no pM'eria] damage to houses and buildings they have left their indelible mark on the landscape. The shakes have now teen felt in the Taupo district for nearly eight weeks. In the past stronger series have bec-n felt at Wairakei. Taupo and Oruanui. but they have lasted for merely a week or two and then departed as fHystrriously as they came. But this has pot been so this time. The first lug iremor was reported by the postmaster et Taupo on May 10, and since then the earth in the district has heca trembling almost contimiouslv.

Last week I made a tour of inspection through the whole district, and found many marked changes in the landscape. The' Wairakei Valley—"The Valley of a Hundred Smokes"—has altered a great deal, although to the casual observer tlicre does not appear to have been a very great change. The geysers still bubble and boil and play with monotonous regularity, but nearly all of them have changed in some respect. The j sparkling waters of the Champagne Cauldron have taken a new lease of life and they bubble and boil with renewed vigour. The Wairakei geyser is shooting its gushers higher into the air than hasj hern the ca*" since four years ago. The Irishman's Terraces have changed their colour frnm an emerald green to a j eickly milky hue, while the beautiful Opal Lake is now an insipid white in colour. The oancin« Rock appears to have sunk further below the surface of the Twin Geyser and is propelled to the surface of the water with greater force than formerly. The three gushers which make the Prince of Wnlea' Feathers have rarely been such a wonderful sight. A big slip has occurred on the shores of Crater Lake—that weird lake into which •the hot waters of the valley flow and find a mysterious outlet down some subterranean passage. Beneath this weird lake, formed in an old crater as its name. Suggests, the Steam Hammer pounds away more fiercely than ever. Other slips are to bo observed in the valley, but they are all much smaller. Here and there a new geyser his forced its way through the thin crust of the enrfch. CRACKS AND FISSURES. On arriving at Taupo I was informed that large cracks and fissures had been discovered in the hille to the west of the straggling township. At first the residents frankly disbelieved these stories, but as time wore on and still more people stated that they had seen th°m the disbelievers ceased scoffing. I decided to visit the regioc, and with two companions I set out on horseback early in the morning. It was reining heavily, but the sky proclaimed that it would only be showery and gave promise of a fine afternoon.

After twenty minutes' riding we left the road and followed the rough track througjh-dense manuka scrub. 'LAn hour's ride brought us to a typical bush camp, and after a cup of tea we set out over the range of hills that lies come three miles to fhe west of Tnupo and culminates In Rangatira Point. The shininjr waters of Lake Taupo were soon lost to sight and only dreary wastes of manuka scrub country confronted us.

Descending the range on Se far side from Taupo we cair.e on the first traces of cracks. They were not larfe, and in the manuka and tussock grass were, almost lost to sight. About h.ilf an inch wide they ran rousrhly north and south across the slopes of the hills. Here and there as we climbed further down the bill we discovered other cracks of a •Imilar formation.

TONS OF FALLEN ROCK. Early in the afternoon we arrived at Whakaipo Bay and the changes which the earthquakes had wrought here were almost unbelievable. Tons of gravel and rock and dirt had fallen from the tall Whangaruata cliffs that overlook the bay. The whole of the land has subsided •nd the subsidence along the bise of the cliffs is somewhere between two and four

feet so far as we were able to d ; seover. Where formerly there was a beach about fifteen yards in width there is now but a sandy portion about four or five yards ■wide. A hundred yards or so from the beach proper and at the base of the eteep cliffs grog's a little clump of trees and fern. It is impossible to reach

vnese except dv uuut. lyiiuen" ■.!«= ■*«.- faces of jagged rocks reared their faces above the sea all ro'.md this little grove of trees, but now they have disappeared from sijjht. Bushes of reeds which grew beyond the reach of the waters of the lake now rear their tops through the •water's surface. Fences that a couple of weeks or so before had been strained Bβ tight as the strings of a harp are now clack and loose. For over a month no rain had fallen, so the waters of the lake are not high. As a matter of fact they are about three feet lower than is normally the case. Three hundred yards or so from the base of the cliffs a'laree crack runs north and south across the tussock-covered country. The crevice shows a subsidence on the" western side of an average depth o? about three inchee. The loose nature of the soil has prevented a clean break and the crack has the appearance of having been half wrenched by some ternac power. The crack stops suddenly in o dense tangle of undergrowth, but after making a wide detour Wβ struck it aga-in Close by a fence about half a njile from the lake edge. Here the wires are also Black, while the posts show that they have moved by the mighty force of the' earthquakes. The posts on he western side of the crevice have been pulled towards the crack. wh ; le thq?« Qn the other side have also been tugged towards the fissure. MYSTERIOUS WHTTE HOLLOWS. On our way back we take a different track, and in crossing an open flat «n the browned plains we notice many little patches of white pumice sand which one of our party who passed this place a few days before declares were not there then. We dismount and closely investigate these mysterious white hollows, which gleam in the dying sunlight like little pools of clear water. In each we discover a number of deep little holes, and from the isolated nature of the patches of sand we guess that gushers of water have forced their way through the earth, driving the light pumice sand before them and afterwards spreading it over a small area of ground. The wflter evidently been cold, for there are no traces of sulphur or copper marks, and the sand has not the horrible smell usually to be found in connection with hot water springs. As we commence to mount the billg ■which lie just beyond Taupo we come across the largest fissure we have so far

discovered. It runs like the others north! and south, and is almost at the base of 1 the hills. It is in line with the smaller cracks which we discovered in the morning when on niir way to Whakaipo, but '■ further inland, and "we judge that the ; smaller cracks are a continuation of the; large fissure. The depth in some places) is between three or four feet, while the average subsidence on the western side is easily eighteen inches. In places it 16 nearer two feet, while where this is the ease the width of the chasm is about a foot and a half. We have no time in the gathering dusk to follow the crack inland, but from what little we do cc it would appear that as the crevice runs inland so does the subsidence become greater. The fissure runs in the direction of Oruanui and Wairnkei, and it would seem that the source of the earthquakes is in this direction.

Tired and hungry but happy we returned to Taupo.