CLOSING THE EECORD Results of the Disaster Sumed Up. Rotorua, June 15.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 157, 19 June 1886, Page 5

CLOSING THE EECORD Results of the Disaster Sumed Up. Rotorua, June 15.

The great volcanic eruption is, I beliove, now finished as a newspaper sensation, and even tha greediest appetite must be satisfied with the tragic records, and have no wish for any renewal of the phenomenon which has operated so disastrously ovor many square miles of country. Now that tho statements of the survivors and other details so dear to the penny-a-liners have been got rid of, and by the tardy arrival ot telegraph operators just when the pressmen are leaving we are no longer confronted with the mandate "wires b'x'uet'," nor met by ihtj lepro.ichful oyts of two industrious public officers who have had no sleep for five days, it may be possible to give an intelligent and connected account of what has already happened. From telegrams received here it is evident that many people acquainted with the topography of tho district have got mixed regarding what has and what baa not occurred. And then in Ohinemutu one may get a variety of decieions. The first tolograms announcing that Ohinemutu was either totally dostroyed or damaged, and that even Tauranga wai endangered, have never been got completely out of tho minds of the people. It must be stated, to get a starting point for our resume, that Uhioemutu is wholly unimpaired —not on© chimney shakon dovv*, nor one pane broken. That this could be true of any place situated only about 15 miles, as the crow flies from the centre of the eruption, may seem strange to the inexperieuced ; yet, if consideration is given to what we know of the action of volcanoes, it is not at all bxtraordinary. Thero are more than seventy distinct points of volcanic eruption in Auckland Isthmus, and yet the larger proportion of the district is pure clay with out the semblance of scoria aeh or volcanic dust. The spectator might have stood with perfect safety within a mile of Mount Eden and watched it blazo, and as in its quieter moments adventurous tourista do at tho famous Hawaaian volcano, and aa tourists will do hero should Tarawora kf op up it 9 fire. He might ascend the hill, and look into and descend the yawning gulf. The area covered by this eruption is unusually large, and the impulso necessary to send the atones so far as they havo muat have been tremendous, but if any one takee the trouble to make the calculation he will see that the force neceaaary to propel a stone weighing half-a-pound 10 miles ia inconceivable t\s being diecio?ed in any volcanic eruption. Tho dusty clouds borne on the wind may do serious injury over a wide area, and the mud cloud, when its weight is allowed for, has passed much further than would have been conceived Such an eruption as this, happening in any thickly populated district, would have been terribly fatal, as we see by ite effects on scattered native villages ; but as it i^ap'srt fiom the pad loss of life among Maoris, the temporary destruction of feed for cattle on the Eabt. Coast fainis, and thw irreparable loss of the Terraces, the injury to existing settlements in these districts is not so great as might havo been expected from such a catastrophe, and will soon be get over. Where it has injured Rotorua is by shakiug confidence in the stability of the ground, because of the suspicion that what has happened at Rotoraahana may occur at Rotorua, which is in almost an equal ferment. This is truo in one sense, but on the other,

THE ERUPTION OF MOUNT T4RAWERA ig, so far as we know, the only event of the kind for thousands of years, and Ohinemutu may share its fate in thousands more. The chances are not worMi calculating except to bring clearly to the mind of u the reader that, wide as the aiea is that has been affected by this eruption, its origin and power of mischief is strictly local, and | confined to the area embraced in the channel of country extending from Tarawera mountain to Like Okaira, a distance of about ten miles and cay about 10 miles around this centre towards Kaitereria The deposit does not extend so far as this, but in the direction of Te Teko it is said to have been destructive at a distance of 30 miles. There is great exaggeration in many 'of the reports about these deposits, and it may be safely doubted if they will prove permanently fatal to vegetation. A point beyond ten miles of the area may probably be set down at very much less. To enable persons who have no knowledge of the dietress to understand the situation, a few words' of explanation may be necessary. Ohinemutu or Orohinemuti, the head quarters of tourists, and the place where a good sanitarium has been established, is situated on Lake Rotorua, and abounds with hot springs and email geysers, with some traces of terrace formation at Whakarewarewa, a native village ten miles distant from Rotorua. Lake Tarawera lies nine miles in a southeasterly direction, The village of Wairoa stood on a small arm of Tarawera, and Was the nearest point of , embarkation to cross Tarawera for passing Rotomahana, a small lake south of it, and the famous terraces. Tarawera was six miles »c 'BS,. and then an arm . called..<Te> Ariki

bending southwards two miles broughtthe tourist to a small creek,' about a mile and a-half long} carrying] off tho ovei^, flow from Rotomahana. Te Tarato, the- White Terrace, was .situated at the Tarawera end of Rdiiomahanai and, perhaps about four, miles from Tarawera mountain, an eminence 1,964 feet high. The shores of Rotomahana were honeycombed everywhere with steam jets or fumaroles, and exhibited in the highest degree of intensity all thope peculiar forms of volcanic action which have made the Lake District famous. The buried native eettiemont of Te Ariki stood on the arm of, Tarawera bearing that name, and it was there that the Laku guides, who fleeced tha Euro peuns visiting the Terraces, lived. On the morning of Juno lOfch, about 2 o'clock, the side of Tarawera Mountain next Rotomahana Lake was? blown out, aniidata atorm ot the elements — thunder, lightning-, and earthquake. 'On anothur peak ot the sume mountain, anothtjr emumuurt eraser was opened, sendinir forth showts»a of earth in the diruciion of Te Teko. What caused these unusual disturbances in a mountain which had nevw before shown signs of volcanic activity is a matter of speculation, but undermining and subsidence through tho geyser action around. Rotomahana appears a very simple and probable explanation. This violent eruption probably shattered the silicatod steam pipes of Rotomahana geysers, and letting the waters of the lake down in boavy streams caused a terrific steam expansion, and the vomiting of an immense cloud of mud, which was caught io. the terrific cyclone produced by these disturbances, and carried across the south shore of Tarawera, smothering Te Wairoa and the native villages in its journey, and spreading over the east shoro of Rotorua as far as Taheke, on Lake Rotoiti. It has been suggested that mud is of too great a specific gravity to be wind - borne so far —that the mud shower must be accounted for merely by the wetting of the earth with steam. But this theory takea no account of the hurricane prevailing at the time, the evidence of which is given in uprooted tree 3 and tho dashing of mud with such tore© against the buildings, trees, and po^ts that it stripped off the leaves and plastered in eolid layers, which gaverise to the evidently erroneous impression that great lumps had travelled for miles. Tho theory also offers no explanation of the extensive deposits of dry earth and ash to the southward of Rotomahana, large portions of which must have been driven out by steam and borne across. The volumes of steam at all t.mes I hanging over tho lake, attendant upon these eruptions, was the formation of a large I number of fumaroles of stoam volcanoes in ! Kotoniabana and four in the fern valley leadI ing to Lake Okaro, where the disturbance i stops. Seven fumaroles were also opened up on different parts of Tarawera mountain* The most startling feature of tho eruption is the immense body of eaithy matter which it has deposited, and the evonnoss with which it was spread. This totals many millions of ton*. Tho country ia covered smooth as a table, every irrogularity rounded off to a perfectly even »urface. U we Adopt the theory oi subsidence in Tatawora mountain as tho cause of the eruption, and thoie is evidence of it at JRotorua, where the sight of an ancient j village is now submerged in the Lake, the occurrence will and should, I think, prevent the aggregation of any large population upon lands subject to such treacherous, insidious, and ivresitible ngencie*. At tha &irae time, ono year henco people who are now uneasy with these reflection^ will probably have reconciled their minds to take the risk by reflecting that it is not woith while calculai ing upon events that happen only onco in a geological period. The immediate damage thcro conf-ists in tho los=? of 7 European* and 97 native 0 , and the destruction of five nativo village?, two hotels, two houso°, and a mitsion hall, and the ovoreip oading of the country described with (ip.brit-. The futuro danger arises from tho slipping down of tho thick mud deposits under rain action. '5 hough thd danger is probably over-esiiraatetl, pettiement" will be very gradual. Tho greatest danger is at Tikitapu, where there i<* no outflow from the Lake, but some flooding is all that we have to apprehend. Tho Wairoa road will bo destroyed for the winter, the village being ruined, and thu entrance to Xotcmahana from Lake Tar a wen is out off by mu) deposits 30 feofc th'ck. That road raay never be worth repwing, but another must bo opened quickly round the other eidc of Tikitapu and Kotok.ihi Lake", and the tourists visiting Hotomahana will no longer have to submit to the inconvenienco and extortion of boatmen, while the guides may have had such fear instilled into their minds by the calamity that has befallen their predece*fors that Rotorua may yet pee good springing out of the calamity which ?e neatly involved it in luin.