THE EARLY HISTORY OF TARANAKI.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4145, 3 July 1874, Page 3

THE EARLY HISTORY OF TARANAKI.

The Province of Taranaki has a more chequered history than any other part of New Zealand, but a contribution to the memorials of its creation, furnished by the News, 11111 probably bo read with more interest and astonishment than many of the records of personal or battle-field encounters between the European and the Native. With Mount Egmont and a number of other things in the distance, the News writes

Man, although his earthly existence is finite and fenced within narrow bounds, is yet linked with the mighty past, and connected with the infinite future. This is true apart from all considerations of his spiritual nature, for the constituents of his physical frame are as old as creation, and at his death are not destroyed, but merely chemically changed, and set free, to go forth again and again, in perhaps, an infinite series, to embody various manifestations of the mysterious principle which we call life. It is, therefore, not to bo wondered at that man should exercise his intellectual power in scanning his relationship with the past or in casting earnest looks into the future. The latter is, to a great extent, inpenetrable ; but the events of the past, in their grand procession, have left “ footprints on the sands of time,” which convey to him glimpses of history, truly ancient. At the bottom of the ancient sea, whose waves once rolled over the spot now occupied by our Province, an ooze accumulated during many ages, composed of the cretaceous covering and framework of myriads of lowlyorraniaed creatures, diatom®, globigerin®, and foramenifera, and of an argillaceous sediment derived from the erosion of ancient rocks by the surges, or from the deposits of rivers flowing over some unknown and now submerged continent. This ooze grew and consolidated beneath the pressure of the ocean until it became burdensome to the fiery giant who reigns below in the kernel of the globe. The pressure continuing and increasing, the giant at last lifted up the burden in a mighty throe, and the once slimy ooze rose above the green waves, and assumed the form of cliffs and hills and vales, which were kissed by the sun, and fertilised by the atmosphere. Soon the breezes brought the impalpable spores of the various cryptogams, the lowly lichen, the curious fungus, the delicate moss and fern ; and when these by their functions during life, and by the deposition of their remains at death, had formed a vegetable mould, the breezes wafted over the new land the winged seeds of trees and shrubs, and birds sowed those that were wingless and weighty. It soon became evident that Pluto had not obtained complete riddance of his burden, for the tremors of the giant, as he writhed beneath his load, were frequently felt. At last, collecting all his strength, the fiery giant burst his bonds and leaped in exultation towards the sky. What pen can describe the long fire-storm which then ensued ? Per ages the volcanic fires lit up the midnight skies, and illumined the ancient sea for leagues around. The ejected molten lava built up the peak of the mountain, formed its mighty buttresses and adjacent dikes. Prom the craters were shot forth showers of rod hot bombs, and clouds of volcanic dust, which accumulating round the base of the mountain, formed a bed of tufa some hundred and fifty miles in circumference. During the ages of this volcanic storm, snow fell, as now, upon the heights of the mountain, giving rise to copious torrential streams, and these, in their endeavors to reach the sea, carved out the land into fantastic forms of ridges, valleys, and hollows. After a river had flowed for yearn in one channel, its course would be diverted by storms of tufa from the mountain. Sometimes the abratding power of the rivers would ho insufficient to remove the obstacles which impeded their course ; lagoons would then ho formed, whose gathering waters would in time obtain sufficient strength to bur it through all resistance. Occasionally, in certain localities, force was exerted in a secondary degree, breaking up the solid trachytio floor which had been formed, and leaving memorials of its powerin heaps of angular breccia, which in time became covered with tufa, and assumed the shape of round-topped hills. In vents like the Sugar-loaves, the plastic lava flowed on the ancient beach, licking up particles of more ancient rocks, and embedding shells of mollusca.

As the ages rolled along, the fires of the mountain peak grew paler and paler, till they at last expired, leaving monumental piles of trachyte and ashes to attest their energy and long' continuance. Then in the long slumbering years which followed, vegetation gradually adorned the scene of the fire-stox-m. Lichens covered the once incandescent rocks, mosses fringed the streams, the great forests sprang up, and gentle and graceful birds peopled the green boughs, and awoke the sylvan solitudes with their melody.