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National Geographic : 1936 Feb
Contents
NEW ZEALAND "DOWN UNDER" River. In Geyser Valley, a cleft between wooded hills, Champagne Cauldron is bub bling; the Dragon's Mouth spews scalding waters; The Twins boil, gurgle, and inter mittently spout into heated activity; and The Prince of Wales' Feathers lacks only the "Ich Dien" to make its plumed spray a most realistic emblem. Several small pink terraces have also been built up by the cascading silica-laden waters. Three miles from this valley Karapiti Blowhole roars continually, letting off steam (estimated at 180 pounds' pressure to the square inch) from its nearly foot wide mouth, like some overfired colossal locomotive (see illustration, page 179). One wonders what the thermal activity in North Island would be if this giant safety valve were not serving as an outlet to the tremendous underground pressures. At near-by Wairoa and at Waiotapu, nearer Rotorua, are other interesting dis plays of thermal activity. Only a few miles off from the main road, too, is Waimangu (Black Water), which in 1900 suddenly came to life and shot mud and water 1,500 feet in the air, the world's greatest geyser.* For eight years it had considerable ac tivity, and then lapsed into a long period of quiet. Since then, it has awakened with heavy outbursts on several occasions. At the moment it is inactive, but no one knows when the innocent pool may again turn into another caldron of wrath. The whole Rotorua district is an inter mingled inferno and vernal paradise. The New Zealanders, however, have assisted in clothing the pumice-covered lands with trees. State and private companies have planted thousands of acres to insignis pines throughout the locality. A FOREST BLOWN AWAY Afforestation projects include not only the Rotorua district but also extensive operations in other localities as well. In North and South Islands the State has plan tations totaling nearly 400,000 acres, while private companies, beginning in 1923, have more than a quarter of a million acres al ready planted. Forests come and forests go, but none has ever gone quicker than the one which previous to 1886 clothed the top of Mount Tarawera, a grim old mountain that stands * See "Waimangu and the Hot-Spring Country of New Zealand," by Joseph C. Grew, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, August, 1925. just east of Tarawera Lake and Roto Ma hana. Without warning, in the early hours of June 10 in that year, the whole top was blown off by a violent volcanic outburst. With the forests and flying rock also went all the water from Roto Mahana and the famed Pink and White Terraces. For eight miles the earth was rent as if by a giant's cleaver. Mud, water, and volcanic ash showered the countryside, covering some places to the depth of several feet. Several Maori settlements and the village of Wairoa were buried under the rain of debris. At the Maori village of Whakarewarewa I talked with an aged Maori woman who, as a young girl, had experienced those awful hours of bombardment (see Color Plate III). The only one of her family to escape, she had never gone back to the place again. But were she to return she would see many changes. The scars have largely been healed, the countryside has again been clothed with verdure, but Roto Mahana is now 30 times larger than it was before the eruption. The other lakes also are strikingly altered, and the deep rift still yawns in the hills. Rotorua is known to countless visitors, because of its geysers, plop-plopping mud pots, and its famous curative thermal springs. Here the Government maintains an extensive sanitarium and baths (p. 190). NATURE PROVIDES HOT WATER AND FIRELESS COOKERS Homes in the near-by Maori villages of Ohinemutu and Whakarewarewa (pronun ciation usually shortened to Whaka!) are built among the steaming crevices, hot springs, and boiling pools (see page 173). Many of the women and girls act as guides to the thermal area, and the villagers also present their poi and haka dances for the benefit of visitors (see page 176). This once-powerful native people, despite earlier prophecies of their decline, is no longer a dwindling race, as are many other ancient peoples. Their numbers are in creasing, and many are now engaged in agricultural and pastoral activities. Their leaders, too, have made names for them selves in politics, law, and medicine. The Maoris total nearly 73,000, or about one for every twenty other persons in the Do minion. Except for the Maoris, New Zealand is British. Like Australia, New Zealand has held rigidly to this policy of a white 213
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