WHEN EGMONT ERUPTED

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 69, 23 March 1931, Page 8

WHEN EGMONT ERUPTED

IMPORTANT EVIDENCE FOUND MAORI OVEN BENEATH ASH. THEORIES OF SCIENTISTS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) NEW PLYMOUTH, Saturday. A find which, in the opinion of scientists, is of very great importance, was inspected on the slopes of Mount Egmont from Stratford yesterday by a party headed by Mr. W. B. Oliver, director of the Dominion Museum, Wellington, in tho form of an old Maori oven in a cutting, buried beneath layers of volcanic ash and pumice. The opinion was expressed that Egmont had erupted during

tho occupancy of New Zealand by the Maoris and had been active within the last 600 years. The view held hitherto had been that Egmont had not erupted within historic times.

The oven, consisting of a mass of round stones, charcoal and other unmistakable evidence, was uncovered by a party of workmen about 18 months ago, while making a cutting to the upper slopes from the Stratford side.

On top of the oven was an uninterrupted layer of volcanic "pug" or ash. Immediately above the oven, with its roots embedded in the top soil, was an ancient totara tree, judged by experienced forestry men to be anything from 400 to 500 years old. That tree must have grown since the old oven was covered with volcanic deposits ' from Egmont.

Steps were taken yesterday to preserve the relic and photographs wore made to accompany a paper which Mr. Oliver will prepare dealing with this new 'piece of evidence that will cause scientists to modify their theories.

"One is compelled- to admit," said Mr. Oliver, "that the stones must have been carried here and laid in tills selected spot by hand, while their blackened sides indicate that heat had been applied to them. Then, I find pieces of charcoal embedded round the sides and a different volcanic structure just below. I am satisfied that the presence of the oven cannot be explained by the suggestion that it was built at the bottom of a hole dug in the ground. This covering pug is nothing but an ancient shower of ashes."

Mr. Oliver recalled that an ancient Maori legend existed to the effect that a chieftain of the fourth emigrating canoe, which landed near to Waikanae, was a very sick man when he reached .New Zealand and could be kept alive only by the warmth of the sacred fire said to have been brought in the canoe. As there was a danger of (hat fire being extinguished, a great warrior swam out to White Island, securing a fresh source of sacred fire. That fire was carried to distant mountains, where volcanoes were thereby caused. Some, according to this legend, was spilt upon Eginont. The result.was a great blaze of thunder and the whole sky was blackened with smoke, making day into night. , "With the evidence of this oven buried in volcanic ash," said Mr. Oliver, "there would seem now to be a foundation of fact in the legendary eruption of the mountain. It appears certain to me that Mount Egmont's eruption did not occur away back in the ages of the past, but happened actually while the Maoris were living here. In the light of this evidence, the old theory - ■>