SAILING THROUGH BOILING WATER.

North Otago Times, 6 September 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

SAILING THROUGH BOILING WATER.

New Zealand's boiling lake (Taraworu). about portions of which tourists are ferried by guides in a'boat after being warned'to "sit down, and not dangle their hands in the water." But a voyage through 50 miles of niid-ocean hot springs embodies the elements of a greater sensation than that. A special despatch dated Now York, March 29, to the San Francisco "Chronicle," states i-After sailing through miles of water so hot that the cook declared lie was able to boil eggs in the steam that arose from it, the British steamer Lothian, arrived here to-day from Japan and China. The boiling water is supposed to liave l)con caused by submarine! volcanic disturbances, and and altogether it is figured that the Lothian steamed through fifty miles of the mid-ocean hot springs. The ship was between Hongkong find Culm, and was making twelve knots an hour in a tranquil sea when the water began to boil. The mate of. the Lothian said to-day that the first knowledge they had of the boiling water was when the ocean all around the 'ship began to crackle like the noise of burning wood. At the same time the ocean began to bubble. The atmosphere 25ft. above the sea was perfectly clear, but below that the steam arose until iUwas condensed by the air. No distinct shock was lelt, but the ship trembled like it had chills and fever.