Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-08-21
A BOILING LAKE.
Prof. Yards 4dcenture IN q Ne,c Zealand
Volcano.
Utica Morning Herald.l

Utica Morning Herald
Prof. Henry A. Ward, formerly of the uni
versity of Rochester, N. Y, is writing letters
touching his travels in New Zealand, some of
which detail singular experiences. In his
last he says: "I came from Auckland by
steamer south for 125 miles along the east
coast to the town of Tamanga. I hired a
twenty-ton cutter and started to visit the sea
volcano. We sailed all night and at daybreak
we had before us mountain of black scoria,
$50 feet high, from the top of which, with
much force, went white clouds of vapor
to height of fully 1900 feet. Reaching the
shore it was not easy travelling, for in
places the black pebbles of the beach were all
astir with water boiling UP through them
water so hot that misstep might scald the
foot seriously. At this point the crater wall
has been broken down almost to the sea level
and we could look into the great hollow
island.
The crater is circular, full mile in diam
eter, and hemmed in by walls many hundred
feet high and very precipitous. The cratar
floor was an uneven plain of volanic ash and
scoria, with many little fumaroles or blow
holes, through which hot sulphur vapors
came wheeling out, while every few min
utes there was beneath our feet a
smart trembling and low, dull, rolling roar.
The smoke of vapor began to thicken as we
went along and we soon found the cause. We
were stopped short BY great lake of steam
ing water, quite filling this end of the crater,
and being, as we could see when the clouds
lifted, half mile from either side. The water
was too hot to comfortably bear the hand in
it, and was further insupportable to either
touch or taste by strong Infusion of alum
and sulphuric acid, which bit painfully at any
scratch or sore upon our skin.
On the further border of the lake and half
around it's shore was row of the most vio-
lent solfaturas which have ever seen. They
had built for themselves little pillar-lke
cones from ten to thirty feet high, and yard
or two in diameter at its base, and through
these open chimneys they were trumpeting
steam and roaring sulphuric gases with Wig
lance that was frightfal to Contemplate, and
such demoniacal screeching and din as aff1ict-
ed our ears, even at the long distance where
we stood. We dragged the row-boat along
the volcanoes floor and launched it upon the
boiling lake. The water of the lake was of
milky Opaque cast, but we could feel with our
oars that it was in most places not over ten
feet deep. Lines upon the shore showed that
it daily rose and fell slightly with the tide of
the sea outside.
In many spots the water was boiling furi-
ously with so much froth and foam, while
still it's heat was much below the boiling
point of 212 Fahrenheit. These were danger
Gus places, the abundant air in the water di-
minished materially it's buoyancy, and our boat
sank alarmingly low in crossing them. We
landed across the lake, atone of the solfataras
nearest to the beach, and proceeded to demol-
ish it with our oars. 1t was chimney about
two feet in diameter, clay without, and within
it was lined with crystals of sulphur of a
beautiful straw-yellow, splashed with vermil-
lion spots. Pushing in the top of this chin.
ney, the fragments would first fall down its
throat, and then come flying out into the air
with explosions that were amuslngly like a
prolonged stentorian cough"