This young Wairakei worker has found a practical use for geothermal steam: with an ingenious contrivance of copper wire, steam issuing from the bowels of the earth at enormous pressure is made to boil the billy, then gushes out into the air. (NPS PHOTOGRAPH) water and steam to the surface. Developing the steam resources has become a matter of striking them at depth. The location chosen for exploratory drilling was Wairakei, near Lake Taupo. Previously known only for its tourist hotel, attracting guests to the picturesque thermal phenomena, by 1952 Wairakei produced enough steam from shallow bores to provide adequate supply for a 20 megawatt power station. The exploratory step was over. The establishment was enlarged and placed in the charge of a special project engineer, Mr A. L. C. Fooks. Mr Fooks, like most of the other engineers at Wairakei, had gained his experience on the building of the hydro-electric dams, New Zealand's biggest engineering projects. He was supplied with two rotary rigs much bigger than the water-drilling equipment used previously. It was soon confirmed that deep bores (1500–2000 feet) were generally more productive. Now steam began to gush out in prodigious quantities. Wellheads continued roaring day and night, making so much noise that workers lost their sense of equilibrium. Silencers were designed, reducing the pressure of the steam. Drilling in the loose pumice soil presented its own peculiar difficulties. Blowouts and blockages occurred easily during the early investigations. To the expert, these little sticks tell the whole story of drilling at Wairakei. Each of the sticks represents a bore. The marks on the sticks show the temperature at every level and the type of rock that is found in the bores. From these sticks scientists can deduce at the glance what is going on thousands of feet beneath the surface of the earth. (PHOTO: PETER BLANC)