New Lake at Rotorua.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue I, 2 January 1904, Page 54

New Lake at Rotorua.

ROTORUA, December 23.

A new lake lias been discovered in the dirthet by Mr Darcy Irwine,, who has been surveying a block of land here. The land surrounding the lake has mostly subsided, and a large number of trees are submerged. There are two streams leading from the lake, which find an outlet in one of the earthquake fissures.

Although the discovery has just been made there is reason to believe the lake was formed when Waimangu was formed.

The particulars available at present describe the lake as being of great size, so much so that it is not possible to gauge its dimensions without measurement by surveys, and it appears to have a considerable depth. It seems to have been formed a very considerable time •go by a subsidence in the land over c. large area, and there are partially submerged forests of rimu, rata and tawa visible in the water, their tops protruding out of the body of the lake. The depth also appears great, but there were no means at the time of the discovery of finding out the average or the greatest deptn at any part.

The lake is fed by a bush stream, which has its origin far away in the bush in probably some spring, and the outflow comes from a break in the eastern side of the depression. It comes out in a considerable volume, only to disappear into a volcanic fissure, thence flowing underground in an unknown channel, and never again emerging within visible distance of the lake.

The lake, which is about fourteen miles from Rotorua, is to be surveyed

as soon as possible. The newly-found lake, though a large sheet of water, does not aeem to be known to the local natives at all. It is in the centre of the MangarewaKahewa block, recently purchased by the Government from the natives for settlement, and it was in the course of his survey of the land that Mr D’Arcy Irvine, Government surveyor in the Rotorua district, discovered the lake. It is close by the famous Mangarewa Gorge on the road from Tauranga to Rotorua.