WEIRD REGION

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 1210, 7 January 1925, Page 6

WEIRD REGION

VISIT TO.WHP iSLAND. VOLCANO. AUCKLAND, Jan. 6. Although White Island is considered to be one of tho wonders of the world, and is only 32 miles from Whakatune, it is seldom visited by ordinary sightseers. A party made a trip to the island during the holidays. Leaving Whakatune at four o'clock in the morning, all were ashore on White Island by eight. The party of about twenty, including several ladies, then started to explore this weird region. Tho landing is made on a short stretch of boulder-strewn beach, where the soft murmur of the sea is in strong contrast to the roars of the volcano. Tho island up to about twenty feet above high water level, is of solid black rock, but all above that, to a height of about 800 feet, is all of a crumbly volcano nature. There is nothing but fire-scorched boulders and debris of all kinds without the slightest vestige of vegetation within _ a radius of half a mile of the raging volcano. Picking a way over what was once a lake, and which now is a quaking mud flat with simmering mudholes and steam jets and trickles of boiling water, and hundreds of rounded mounds (each containing about 100 tons of half-baked rock or rubtSg) under which lie the remains of fourteen men submerged in the eruption of 1915, the party reached the main vent. This is situated half a mile inland, and about thirty feet above sea level. No words could accurately describe this volcano. Standing on the brink, the visitors looked into a pit about 40 feet deep and of similar diameter. Here steum rushes out with a screech and roar that arc deafening, and rises to a height of from 300 to 3000 feet. At the bottom of the pit is an incandescent rock which glows like a giant furnace.. Rising up about ten feet, it looks like a great three-headed tlragon with lips turned back in a perpetual snarl, while out of its three great glowing throats fire and steam rush with a screeching, rumbling roar, louder than thunder and most weird and unearthly. Several other small vents were visited where steam brings up boiling sul.phur which crystalises on reaching the air, until the accumulations look like large yellow anthills with a steaming funnel on top. A few' of the most venturesome of the party reached the far side of the crater, but others were driven back by choking fumes which drifted across from the bed of boiling sulphur. Several other blow-holes were seen on this side. Visitors would be wise to give this part a wide berth when the wind is unfavourable.