PINK AND WHITE TERRACES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18453, 14 January 1922, Page 13

PINK AND WHITE TERRACES

THEIR DESTRUCTION VOUCHED FOR. (From Odr Own Correspondent.) AUCKLAND, January 13. The suggestion of Alfred Warbrick, Tourist Department guide, that the. famous pink and white terraces at Lake Rotomahana wore not really destroyed by the Tarawera eruption in 1886, and could be restored by lowering the lake by a channel cut to Lake Tarawera, is scouted by some of those who visited the scene at the time of the disaster. Several parties who visited the lake within- a day or two after the upheaval reported that the terraces had been completely destroyed. Mr Warbrick’s chief reason for a belief of the existence of the terraces below the water is that “if the terraces had been blown up, fragments of silica of which they were composed, would have been found. None were found. ’ - In opposition to this, William Blomfiold, ' who declares that, with a Mr Steele, he was the.first to reach the lip of the crater after the disaster, distinctly states that there were fragments of silica, and very largo fragments, some of which he brought back to Auckland. “ The terraces were blown right out; there is not the slightest doubt of it,” said Mr Blomfield. “Mr Steele and I wore the only two who went down over the edge of the crater and stood just above the site of the terrace. We dug up great chunks of silica which had beeri blown from the terrace, which had undoubtedly been shattered. We brought a lot of it| which, I think, was sent to a museum. You may take it from me that those terraces are non cst.”