THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 1886.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7664, 15 June 1886, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 1886.

It is a remarkable circumstance that with the always unmistakable activity of the subterranean tires in our Lake district, there should be no memory or tradition of previous outbreaks, with the exception of that, near LakeTaupo in 1846, a tragedy which, in its range, the number of deaths it caused, had but very moderate proportions compared with the present calamity. The Maoris have undoubtedly been in this Island for some centuries, and if, during the period, there had been another such outburst on anything like this awful scale, it certainly would not be for gotten. The story of occurrences in the far past, much less impressive for the imagination, have been handed down among them from father to son. It is another illustration of the great spaces of time that may intervene between such formidable ebullitions, even where the volcanic forces are neither dead nor sleeping. Of late years, however, these forces have indeed become very active in many of the volcanic regions of the world. Of course, now-a-days, we are in the way of hearing more immediately and fully of anything of the kind, no matter how remote the site of the may be. But volcanic eruptions to calamitous degree, or earthquakes, or tidal waves are not events which could be easily hidden away in modern times, even before there were the present facilities for transmitting news, and there is no mistake that within the last few years there has been an extraordinary succession of these phenomena at all sides of the globe. Indeed, so far as we know, quite unprecedented in its extent, was that exhibition of volcanic action which then, after being preceded by some earthquake shocks at Agram in Croatia, broke out in a series of upheavals and eruptions in the basin of the Mediterranean, running along its mainland and islands, and extending to the opposite archipelagoes in the Atlantic. And, after an interval of many months, the spectacle was repeated, over much of the same line, causing—as at the Greek isle of Chios and the Neapolitan one of Ischia—more loss of life than on the previous occasion. Then there Were sympathetic shocks in quarters so remote as Canada in one direction and New Zealand in another, for here we had quantities of dead fish cast up along the eastern coast, and a little isthmus separating two lakelets in the Rotorua district was broken through, as chronicled in this journal at the time. But the most serious response — truly the most terrible event in that whole period of volcanic activity was the catastrophe in the Straits of Sunda, which quite changed the face of Nature on some of the neighbouring shores, and was fatal to great numbers of the inhabitants.

Considering the tremendous potency of the volcanic forces, it is not perhaps wonderful that at different times many have given credence to the legend of

the lost Atlantis — a continent or enormous island occupying the place of the present ocean, or most of it, and which is said to have derived its name from the legend. As the reader is aware, Plato was the authority for the story, who represented it as brought by the Athenian lawgiver Solon, who in his travels heard it from a priest of Sais, in Egypt. Whether it be true or not, that this Atlantis was inhabited by a people of wonderful civilisation and power, who spread their conquests within the pillars of Hercules, over adjoining parts of Europe, and the opposite Libya or Africa, until their native country was swallowed up by the sea " in a single day and night" (or, as an ancient Basque tradition has it, "by lightning, thunder, and a deluge, that submerged their land for ever ") — whether or not there was any such wonderful nation, we find nothing incredible in the existence of such a land at some far past period where now the Atlantic Ocean rolls. All the archipelagoes lying in the mid - Atlantic — Canaries, Madeiras, Azores—are volcanic islands, and really look like the fragments of a broken and submerged continent. At the Azores, in particular, we know that even in modern times volcanic action has repeatedly submerged portions of the land, and, at least temporarily, raised up islands from the bottom of the sea —for example, in 1812, that which received the name of Sabrina. This legend of the lost Atlantis was one of the encouragements to Columbus when he sailed in quest of a western continent.

It is unnecessary to say that the subterranean iires are something else besides a cause of terror. They have also their beneficial inlluence arid render signs,l services to the human race. Take, for instance, the Gulf Stream, formed by equatorial currents in the Gulf of Mexico, where, fed by boiling springs, it rushes forth with a temperature which in the North Atlantic is 25 or 30 degrees higher than that of the ocean it, forces a path through, when tho current of warm air accompanying the warm current of water, softens the climate of Western Europe. But for the Gulf Stream, Great Britain and Ireland would have more polar cold than Newfoundland; and it would be as hard to live in Norway or countries further south as to live in Labrador. Then as we know, and are proud of in New Zealand, the warm springs kindled by the subterranean fires have their wonderful health-giving properties, and are resorted to by invalids from countries not favoured with their possession. Again, the volcanic soil contributes to the production of the best wines, and as a rule is notably favourable to other fruits, as well as the grape. We are aware that the Canaries produced the golden apples of the Hesperides, and the Azores now figure a3 the Fortunate Islands in that way.