The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-11-12
a NEW ZEALAND VEsUVIUs.
The Whole Aspect of the Country
Changed in six Hours.

Changed in six Hours.
From the Windsor Magazine.
The white terraces of Rotomahana rose
up in a series of twenty platforms in t. e
form of gigantic stairway Each terrace
was perfectly horizontal and of dazzling
wilderness. The top step was vertically
eighty feet above the base and sat 500
feet hack. From every platform bub, les
copious clouds Of steam. A stream Of
boiling water continually flowed from the
geysers. and as it fell slowly from tier
to tier the silicates with which the wa
ter was heavily charged became desposi ed,
on its exposure to the air in wonderful
lace-work designs of infinite variety and
| of dazzling whiteness and purity were
formed. Not far from the white terrace
was another termed the pink Terrace"
where, owing to some colorng substance
! in the silicious waters falling from he
geysers, the deposits were Of delicate
pink hue from which was derived the
name "Pink Terrace"
Unfortunately New Zealand no longer
possesses this unique spectacle, for the
terraces are no more. The various agen-
cies of nature which originally butt up
such curious forms served in turn to de-
stroy them. Mr.. Falconer gives a graphic
description % the event. He was residing
Tarawera. In 1885, on June 10, the nighg
was clear end calm. Heavy rumbliag
sounds like rolls of distant thunder filled
the air but there was no very great alarm.
The next day dawned dun and gloomy.
About 7:3G O'Clock the morning grew dark
er and light gray ash, very fine, began
TO fall. He says that although they sur
missed an eruption was taking place in the
Hot Lake district, there were no definite
tidngs 10 that effect, so that he could only
II.
aid Of q lantern he succeeded in cropping
his way TO the telegraph office, and there
he learned tr1i a serious disturbance was
taking place at TaraWera end Rotoma-
hama. About II o'clock the darkness lift-
ed. All round the ground was covered
with a thin, f my pail of line ash to the
depth Of half an inch, and it was after
ward found that the intense darkness vas
caused by a thick cloud of dust blown out
by the volcano 10 a hight so tremendous
that it passed above Tauranga and g.
persed over the country some miles away.
The manifestation was accompanied by
intense cold, the thermometer registering
FIVE degrees of frost. This is explained by
the fact that the columns Of steam as they
came Kissing out of the craters expanded
as they assembled and absorbed their own
heat, which became latent, 50 that the
heat was distracted from everything near.
A day or two later the government geolo-
gist arrived at Tauranga, and preparations
to inspect the seat of the disaster were
pushed rapidly forward. On the fourth
day after the eruption, the party arrived
at Wairoa, the Maori village. There was
scarcely Vestge Of the settlement to
be seen, the whole village had been crush
ed beneath volcanic lava, and the charred
and battered remains of the little village
church and other buildings protruded
above the surface of the deposit, which
at first measured four feet in thickness,
but afterward settled down 10 half that
depth. One young Englishman was killed,
as well as the Maors who lived in the dis
trict and exacted tolls from visitors to the
Hot Lakes. The scene was the widest
imaginable. The air rushed over the land
with cyclonic fury, uprooting tearing and
breaking trees that had survived the hail
of rocks leaving here and there a gnarled
and jagged trunk, denuded of branches
and stripped of its bark.
The next day the party set off for Roto-
mahana. AS they approached the hot
lakes huge cracks, extending hundreds of
yards, In length and about foot in width ]
were seen in all directions. The scene was
one of the strange grdndeur Of absolute
desolation. The upheaval Of nature had
blown the wonderful terraces to atoms
steam was rising in dense clouds from one
end Of the area TO the other, a distance
of about nine miles. Rotomahana lake was
a yawning caldron from which rose a