NOT A VOLCANO.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 3 February 1926, Page 8

NOT A VOLCANO.

1U; MULING M OUiVJ'AJN. STONES BOLLING DOWN. BRISBANE, Jan. LI. Messrs A. and E. North, retired sta-tion-owners, wlio owned Moray Downs station, on which. Mt. Gregory is situated, from 1.572 till 1911. state that from their knowledge of Mt. Gregory the reported rumbling noises (mentioned recently in a cable niesage to the Star) were due to large rocks being dislodged and rolling down the mountain-side and displacing other boulders in their course These noises, they declare, always occur alter heavy rain. The sounds they had heard resembled claps of thunder. They had never heard continuous rumbling. They had been on top of Mt. Gregory and had not seen anything resembling lava or the crater of a volcano. In fact they had never seen any signs of volcanic activity. Referring to the report of haze or smoke hanging over the mountain, the Norths said that jf the surrounding country had been burnt off it was likely that whirlwinds would carry ashes to a great height, and they could easily be mistaken for smoke issuing from the mountains.

Mr. W. Bryan, lecturer in geology at Queensland University, states that early geologists in Queensland had noted these rumblings, and Mt. Gregory consequently came to have the additional name of “rumbling mountain.’’ Queensland, said Mr. Bryan, was from the geological point of view in a quiescent” state, and true volcanic action was improbable.