MOUNT RUAPEHU.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8792, 20 April 1907, Page 3

MOUNT RUAPEHU.

Eruption Denied.

Manawatu Times.

Correspondents of some of our contemporaries have been sending sensational statements alleging that Ruapehu has broken out in eruption, and one imaginative individual declared that large volumes of smoke were issuing from the crater on Friday morning. It is evident that something must be wrong with “ the crater ” in the backblocks to cause these visions, and it might be better if the correspondents took more water with it. The actual facts on which these sensational statements have been founded are described by eyewitness.

A representative of this journal was yesterday reliably informed by a gentleman who is exceptionally conversant with that portion of this Island and who was in close proximity to the mountain two days ago, that the reports are of an alarmist character, and must be taken cum srano salis, a good big quantity of same too. He considers the rumours are mostly imaginary and are, as a matter ot fact the resurrection of a ghost, a somewhat old one, who made his appearance to no purpose some six years ago, when the question arose as to which way the Main Trunk railway line, after leaving Waiouru was to be taken. Our informant considers that these accounts now being published in reference to the unusual volcanic energy of Ruapehu are a weak and belated effort on the part of disappointed parochial interest promoters to endeavour to set the authorities thinking that it would be wise, even at this late Lour, to divert the unfinished portion of the line between Ohakune and Eaurimu to a safer distance from the disturbed area, nearer Kaetihi for instance. One would think that some people in this world consider they hold a briof from nature in tliesc matters, for they make most positive assertions upon the flimsiest of bases. A very heavy rainfall, has, our informant says, recently taken place_ in the neighborhood of Ruapehu, and it is a safe thing to assert much more so on the mountain itself. A huge landslip is known to have taken place on one side of it, and it is thought that this may have given some color to the somewhat reckless statements that have been made that a Bit. Pelee exists in a locality overlooking what will be, when completed, the principal arterial railway communication in this colony. This very unpleasant impression is at the present moment apparently being industriously created by a few "disappointed laud speculators who made persistent but vain efforts to have the railway brought to their very doors. Blany Blarton residents who examined the mountain with field glasses yesterday declared that ' they clearly saw smoke and steam rising from the summit,