THE VOLCANOES OF NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13453, 1 June 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE VOLCANOES OF NEW ZEALAND.

RUAPEHU AND TONGARIRO. ' • ~...'_ ■ ~,: ■ t BY Silt. MALCOLM UOSS. . ..... ( ■ No.' 11. ' ' , I [jr. the previous articles I dealt principally -| j .vith Ngauruhoc, which is the most active j if all the New Zealand volcanoes, and the r one that approaches nearest to being a , 'burning mountain." On either side of it!' stand Ruapehu and Tongariro-— features in the volcanic belt. Ruapehu,; to the south, rises to a height of 9175 ft, j ind is the highest point in the North Is- i £ land. It has not the perfect cone-like' shape of Ngauruboe, but, long, irregular, ' J and massive in form, with perpetual snow-.* fields and small glaciers clothing its summit;' and sides. Until recent years there was s little known about Ruapehu. One of the; first attempts to ascend the mountain was', made by Sir George Grey --nd the Rev. I Richard Taylor, and it is rather amusing, j ' now, to read , that they tried for three j days at various places all round the moun-' tain, but failed to get to the top, being., stopped "by precipitous faces each time." As a matter of fact, : the faces are not at all precipitous, and the ascent is a remarkably easy one. The first ascent was made,, by Messrs. John and .Thomas Allison, in]! December, 1877, but they went only to the; North Peak. Two years later. Messrs. Beetham and. Maxwell made the ascent,. * and, continuing along the summit, discovered the crater lake. Since then various! : ascents have been made, and it is interesting to note the varied experiences of the different climbers in regard to the crater j lake. In 1881 Mr. and Mrs. Birch, and!' Mr. Arthur Russell saw steam rising from.' it; but in 1886 Mr. Park, F.G.S., found 1 the lake frozen over. Three months.after Mr. Park's visit Mr. Lawrence Cussen found the lake boiling. Again, in 1890, Mr. Hill, of Napier, saw the .lake in a state of intense activity. Mr. Lowe, Government surveyor, saw the lake boiling during his ascent in 1895. Great explosions were taking place, and steam was also issuing from holes in the old ice-filled crater, near ' the lake. • In 1898, when I ascended the mountain, there was nc activity in the crater lake, and what, from down below, we took to be- iteam coming from the top of the mountain, proved to be simply volcanic ash blown over the ridge by a strong wind. Similarly, I believe, ;asual observers often say that the mountain is steaming when, in reality, only ashes or wisps of cloud are being blown over its crest. For many years Ruapehu was generally believed to be an extinct volcano, but it will be seen from the foregoing that there is ample evidence to prove that it is still active. Jack Chase, a half-caste Maori, who was piloting two titled Englishmen through the district in 1869, always maintained that they saw a big eruption from Ruapehu. All doubts on the point, as to whether the mountain was capable of violent eruption, were, however, set at rest, when on March 10, 1895, the " great monarch of the North Island" threw up , a column of steam at least a thousand feet , above the crater. There was a splendid display of thermal activity for several days, the volume of steam gradually diminishing, until it no longer rose above the crater. The recent activity has, undoubtedly, been due to similar geyser action ; but the explosion, in comparison with that of 1895, has been of a "minor character. The newspaper reports, regarding activity in the crater of Ruapehu, are often greatly exaggerated, and unless mad-: by careful observers must ba taken with a grain of salt. Mr. Walter H. Dunnage puts this aspect of the matter, with some ioice, hi the survey report of 1895, as follows: — "The reports published in some papers

hat fire and smoke rose from Ruapehu, r nd that large rocks, together with mud. ad been thrown, from the crater, I knew 0 be false before my ascent; but I bought, possibly, the lake had gone, and hat some mud * had been ejected. Howver, this was not so, and the discolouraion of the snow on the mountain side was Ii ue to the fine summer and autumn having ti netted the enow to a lower depth than g stud, in many places nearly to the ground, saving only dirty snow, which had misled lany who saw it from afar." r{ What makes Ruapehu more interesting P han most New Zealand mountains to the t! rdinary traveller is the strange and won- g erful; combination of volcanic and alpine C( cenery. The four hours which we spent . n the top of the mountain during a previ- ' us visit passed all too quickly. The finest * iew was from a. point above the crater jai ake. ;.*,: In , the midst of a vast, ancient, | p now-filled craterlike a beryl in a setting >.- f silver— this little oval lake. Round , he ruin of "its greeny-blue waters ran an dge Of brilliant yellow, and ever and anon, L '& if in answer* some ghostly incanta- li ion from below, trails of yellow sulphur s ] bated out upon the '.waters, forming and u e : forming info weird figures. The lava ocks?of red, and black, and purple that . rowned above the steep ice-cliffs of the I! ake gave a note of .contrast, and served to a: ■mphasise the delicate beauty of the ice- r< imm|d lakelet. At one point a little n rater-fall from the melting snows splashed lownj. into the -looking water, and " i'the running water and the "extra- e " >rdiinary colour of the lake were reflected h n tip' cliffs. of pure ice that rose above, s< )n fc|e:.left, overlooking the wilderness of 0 ■cori£{.|and volcanic ash, that stretched for .. niles& below, there was a great rent in :li6 crater wall, and through this gap— at '"any future time th* volcano ever be- t :omcs a burning mountainit is possible d that • a stream of molten lava will flow v icross the desert and out on to the tussock • plains through which the coach run?. But . for very ' many years there does not appear to have been any considerable lava- a low in this direction, "though, in compara- J Lively recent times, an enormous quantity a of hot ■ cinders, pumice, ashes, and even c rocks 'have beer belched forth, transforming , the face of Nature, -perhaps in a night, and burying whole stretches of forest, the tree ] trunks and branches of which, transformed s to charcoal, can still, be seen wherever a wind, . and water and the hand of man r have drawn aside the veil. In the vicinity . of this rent, born in the upper snows of the volcano, that strange river the Manga- x ehu takes its rife, one .branch yellowish s in colour, and strongly impregnated with t sulphates of iron and alumina, the other c so saturated with alum as to make its . waters undrinkable. V; . . The mountain of Tongariro, or, rather, the Tongariro Range, is also extremely in- y teresting. It is still active. From the 3 summit of Ngaurultoe we could «ee, great f volumes of steam arising from the solfa- . tara-*if Ketetahi, situated at an elevation a of 4800 feet, on the north-western end of , the range, and also from Te Mari, situa- J ted more to the eastward at about the ( same Between Nganruhoe and ( these, active vents stretches the: broken j range, weirdly fantastic in form, colour, and action. There are no fewer than eight t large, and well-defined craters. One of ( these,- to the cast of the north crater, and j separated from it by a great ravine seven. , hundred feet in depth, is the well-defined crater which contains the famous "Blue , Lake.ofome fifty acres in extent. With its blue Raters gently laving the sloping sandy ' beaches and "its crater slopes rising regular- , ly upward from three hundred to five hundred feet, it forms one of the most charm- J ing pictures in the whole volcanic zone. On ; the steep lava ridge, nearer Ngaunihoe,; the glorious colours of the Red Crater catch and hold the eye. This is one of ' the most interesting points on Tongariro. There are ample sign* of recent activity. Beds of deep-red scoria, covered: in part ' with bright' yellow sulphur encrustations, form its upper portions. Its sides are very Bte|p., v ; ; standing •-: at • m ■• angle .-of forty <J'£-gi*i-.Jc'-i'-'m places, and fomw-vrj of -cinder, 1 scoria'ash, and lapilli. On the'north side it is scored by a deep breach formed by a somewhat extensive lava stream, which, bursting through the cone, flowed down over the rocky crateral hollow to the eastward of it, dropping a.height of fully one thousand feet, and spreading out in a fanshaped: bed over the bottom of the old crater, for a distance of a mile or more. At the foot of the Red Crater are three ' little lakes in which the water .is of a delicate, but bright green colour, and on the western side of the range, just below till© great extinct south crater, is a soda spring, j sufficient to supply the whole of Australasia, with soda water of excellent quality. Mr. Hill kept a bottle of the water from this spring, and at the end of four vears it was still fit for drinking. At Ketetahi the waters have valuable curative properties. But, apart altogether . from the volcanic action and: the results thereof, the district contains much that is of interest. The sub-alpine vegetation and the geology are especially, worthy of study. On the plains ■at the foot of the mountains and on some :of their lower slopes one sees a sub-alpine flora that establishes a connecting link between these mountains and the Southern Alps. Clcmemr.kis, gentians, raoulias, and, 11 believe, even, edelweiss are to be found j growing much as they grow in their more 1 .southern habitat. ! In regard "td the geology of the ?one, ' Hochstetter, who in 1859 made a somewhat hurried visit to the district, mentions i that, the rocks collected by him belonged ito the family of rhyolttes, ft group of lava* I characterised by the large portion of silica they contain. Mr. Cussen, however, who imade a more representative _ collection, I found examples of "a more basic group of lavas, and Professor Thomas, who examined 'the specimens, says the more recently ejected lavas consist of the basic rocks known las augite-andesites, which are richer ip j metallic bases and poorer in silica, than the rhyolites. He adds that the order or succession of the rocks at any given vent or |in a given volcanic district, is such that j the more basic follow the acidic lavas. ! The appearance of the basic lavas at such different points in the Taupo zone, should. therefore, seem to indicate the opening of a new phase of its volcanic activity, this present'stage being characterised by basic lavas. There poems, therefore," he adds, "a probability that, if the country in the Taupo volcanic zone is ever again covered ■with great showers of ashes like those which fell at the eruption, of Taxawera, those ashes will, as - they decay, yield a richer soil than the barren pumice now covering so larjje an area." It is possible, therefore, that , the next, volcanic eruption may.be a blessing in disguise—for succeeding . generations. Meantime, the Tourist Department has a wonderland, unequalled in the North Island awaiting development.