MOUNT TUTOKO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2287, 30 December 1897, Page 36

MOUNT TUTOKO.

THE ALLEGED ERUPTION. Though it is several months since the eruption in Mount Tutoko was reported, the report furnished by a resident in the Martin's Bay district, even though it be in the direction of discounting to some extent the accounts of tho eruption that were published at the time, may still be read with interest. The writer is an old sottler, nearly an octogenarian, aud she writes under date the 9 bh November: — \ " I have a bit of news to record concerning | this eruption near Mount Tutoko. It is true there has been au eruption, but I do not think it has been so great as it has been reported to I be. I was at Arrowtown at the time, and no one was at home but Mr M. and H., and they felt an- earthquake, and about tho same time there was heavy rain. In the morning the water barrels had ashes iv them among the water, and on their being emptied out there was a lot of stuff in the bottom such as there would be in the bottom of a boiler of brine when you would let it settle after boiling it red aud frothy, and the tubs that the raia fell into had some also. That let them see that it was not off the roof: of the house that it came. A day or two later the steamer came, and the mate asked Mr M. if he fe't the earthquake. He said " Yes," and that was all that was said about it. They were in a hurry, and pushed off away back to the steamer. The ashes in the barrels were a mystery for the nexti three months, until the steamer called again, and we then saw reports that we knew nothing of. Mr M. wondered what it could have been, and he took it to be a meteor that had dissolred into ashes at the time. / ' *' I went over to Arrowfcown in January, 1895, and when H. and I were on Hamor's Saddle we saw a mountain near Mount Tutoko, standing above a large glacier, of which you have a full view from this saddie, and it was covered with suow all round to near the top. That had no snow on it, but there were greit coils o£ mist or snowdrift, as we took ifc to be. We thought it came off the snow lower down, but we could not see it until it came opposite the black surface. We sat a long time watching it coiling ud, and we wondered that, the ortier mountains, some of which were much higher than this one and »ll of them covered with snow, were not the same. The air was all blue ; every glen and valley had a dark blue colour — even between H. and mo, which vai • not more than three or four yards, the air was thick and blue and smelb of sulphur. This was when we were going up the Greenstone Saddle, and it was the same here in Martin's Bay and the same- at Wakatipu when we went down there. They thought there was a bush fire ia Martin's Bay. And so whac we took to be mist or snowdrift circling up from this mountain was smoke, and ib was in action at the time. 16 is a mountain without a name, and stands above the large glacier opposite Hamer's Saddle, a little to the ensbward of the saddle.'*