with a request addressed to me, to give a short account of my visits to two of the most remarkable regions to be found in this or in any other country. I allude, in the first place, to the great volcanic zone in the North Island, including the famous Hot Lakes and Springs; and, secondly, to Milford Sound, and the other grand and wondrous inlets of the south-west coast of the Middle Island. On the present occasion, I have been requested to contribute some descriptions of the great Lake of Taupo and of the surrounding districts, which I visited on my recent journey overland from Wellington to Auckland, across the centre of the North Island. As it has been previously remarked, “the official tours of a Governor may be made practically useful, for they enable him to point out from personal knowledge, and in an authoritative shape, the resources and capabilities of the several districts of the Colony over which he presides, and the advantages which they afford for immigration, and for the investment of capital.” It is well known that the published reports of my journeys throughout all the Provinces of New Zealand have attracted much attention in the mother country; and that Her Majesty's Government have thought it right, in the interests of this community, to give them wide and official circulation by presenting them to the Imperial Parliament.

I approached the Lake of Taupo from Napier, which I left on the 6th of last April. On that evening we reached the first post of the Colonial Forces at Te Haroto, thirty-five miles from the port, after passing over an undulating country of hill and valley, which, now that permanent tranquillity appears to have been established, will soon be occupied by settlers. Te Haroto is a strong position, 2,200 feet above the sea, on a high hill, which commands an extensive and magnificent prospect of the open ocean and of the coast, as well as of the wild mountains and forests of the Urewera country. On the following day we rode from Te Haroto to Opepe, a distance of forty-two miles, over much rich land, and through some beautiful scenery of hill and woodland, which reminds the European traveller of the Apennines and of the Italian slopes of the Alps, though the semi-tropical luxuriance of the New Zealand forests far surpasses the vegetation of the Old World. It was at Opepe that, in June, 1869, a detachment of the Colonial Forces was surprised and cut to pieces by Te Kooti. On the 8th we left Opepe; at a distance from which of some twelve miles we reached Tapuaeharuru, the native pa at the north end of the Lake of Taupo, near the spot where the River Waikato issues from it with tremendous speed and force. Here the Governor was received with much enthusiasm by the Maoris of the Ngatituwharetoa clan, headed by the loyal chief Poihipi Tukairangi, one of the last survivors of those who signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840; and one of the few chiefs of the central districts of this island who have remained throughout stedfast in their allegiance to the Queen.

The name Tapuaeharuru signifies “echoing footsteps,” and has reference to the hollow sound of the earth in this neighbourhood, owing to the hard superficial crust formed by the volcanic soil over the deep and vast caverns beneath. Along both banks of the Waikato there are numerous solfataras and geysers, which throw up constantly white clouds of steam, and, ever and anon, jets of boiling water. The extinct volcano of Mount Tauhara is a picturesque object rising above the right bank of the river. Below it, the north end of the lake is bounded by the Kaingaroa Plain, by old streams of lava from Tauhara, and by terraces of pumice-stone, varied by groves of manuka, resembling gigantic and evergreen heather. To the Southward stretches bright, broad, and long, the great Lake, or—as it is called by the Maoris^*—the Sea of Taupo, realizing Virgil's description of the Lago di Garda, the Benacus of ancient Italy:—

“Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino.”^†

Taupo is indeed a noble inland sea, the Queen of the lakes of the North Island, with its coast formed mainly by dark and lofty cliffs, grand in their gloom, but relieved here and there by a mountain torrent or a glittering waterfall. At the southern horizon the prospect is bounded by the graceful outline of the peaks of the Kaimanawa range; to the west of which towers the great active volcano of Tongariro,^‡ with its ever-steaming crater of Ngauruhoe; and near it, clad in perpetual snow, the huge mass of Ruapehu.^§

The Lake of Taupo is about 1,200 feet above the sea-level, and somewhat resembles in climate and scenery, as well as in extent (covering about 200 square miles of water), the Lake of Geneva. It is in most parts of hitherto unfathomed depth, and its waters have, probably, filled and overflowed several ancient craters. It is on nearly all sides surrounded by masses of lava, pumice-stone, and other volcanic formations, rising, more or less abruptly, into a high and generally barren table-land. Not far from the centre of the lake is the rocky islet of Motutaiko, celebrated in Maori legend as the abode of the Taniwhas—the malignant water-fiends, whose spite often stirs up the fierce and sudden gales which render so dangerous the navigation of the “Sea” of Taupo.

On the 9th April, we started in a boat for Tokano, the principal native settlement at the south end of the lake. The distance by water is about twenty-six miles, and by land, along the eastern shore, about thirty-six miles. The morning was calm and bright, but at noon a strong contrary gale arose; so we landed at the site of the old Pa of Motutere, whither horses had been sent forward in anticipation of one of these sudden storms. Thence, we rode the rest of the distance (about sixteen miles) to Tokano, chiefly along the margin of the lake; fording, however, several rivers which flow into its

southern extremity; among them the Upper Waikato, which, in this portion of its long course, is generally called by the natives the river of Tongariro. On our arrival at Tokano, as everywhere else on my tour, I was welcomed with hearty respect and good-will by the local chiefs and their clansmen. Our party was lodged in several Maori whares, and food was liberally provided, in the absence of the supplies shipped on board our boat.

We bathed that evening, by moonlight, in one of the many natural basins into which overflow the Hot Springs, that seethe and boil amid and around the kainga, or native village, of Tokano. In these fairy baths—with sides as of polished marble, and bottoms as of glazed porcelain—meet, each evening, the Maoris, old and young; while from every quarter are heard gay chants and songs. “But,” to quote the graphic description of a recent traveller,^* “ever and again, even these voices are hushed and stilled, while, with a weird and rushing sound, the great geyser bursts from the calm waters, rising white and silvery in the moonbeams which reveal the dark outlines of the distant hills, and dashing its feathery spray high against the starry sky.”^†

The southern shores of Lake Taupo are the most fertile and attractive. Near its south-western extremity is the Pa of Pukawa—the residence during many generations of the family of Te Heuheu, one of the most powerful among the old Maori aristocracy. The father of the present chief perished by an awful catastrophe in May, 1846, in the neighbouring village of Te Rapa, on the shore between Pukawa and Tokano. He was buried alive during the night, together with sixty of his clansmen, by a landslip, or rather by an avalanche of boiling mud. To quote Hochstetter;^‡ “Above the springs on the side of the mountain, probably 500 feet above the lake, steam issues from innumerable places. The whole north side of the Kakaramea mountain seems to have been boiled soft by hot steam, and to be on the point of falling in. From every crack and cleft on that side of the mountain, boiling water streams forth with a continual fizzing noise, as though hundreds of steam-engines were in motion. These steaming fissures in the mountain side, upon which every stone is decomposed into reddish clay, are called by the natives Hipaoa, i.e., the chimneys; and it was at the foot of this mountain that, in the year 1846, the village of Te Rapa was overwhelmed by an avalanche of mud, and the great Te Heuheu perished.” Hochstetter adds that the corpse of their chief was afterwards exhumed by his clansmen from the buried village, and accorded a solemn interment. “According to Maori custom in the case of great chiefs, the remains were disinterred after some years, laid out upon a kind of bed of state, and preserved in a magnificently carved

coffin. The sacred remains were intended to be then conveyed to the summit of Tongariro; for the deep crater of the volcano was designed to be the final grave of the hero, with the heaven-ascending pyramid of scoriæ and ashes for his monument. But this grand idea was only half carried out. As the bearers were approaching the top of the ever-steaming cone, a subterraneous roaring noise became audible, and, awe-struck, they deposited their burden upon a projecting rock. There the remains still lie. The mountain, however, is most strictly tapu, and nobody is allowed to ascend it.”

On the morning of the 10th of April we started on horseback, escorted by the principal chiefs, for Rotoaira, a small and pretty lake at the foot of Tongariro, and about ten miles north of Tokano. At first we rode over the rich alluvial delta formed by the Upper Waikato where it flows into Taupo, and which is in part cultivated by the natives. Then, turning to the right, we skirted the wooded base of Pihanga, the hill renowned in Maori legend as the spouse of Tongariro. The native tradition runs that of yore three mighty giants, Tongariro, Taranaki, and Ruapehu—like Pelion, Ossa, and Olympus—stood side by side, until Taranaki attempted to carry off Pihanga, his brother's wife. Then arose a combat like that in the classical mythology between the Gods and the Titans; in which the false Taranaki was at length worsted and forced to fly, drawing after him the deep furrow of the river Wanganui. His flight was stayed only by the western ocean, where he now stands on the shore in solitary and mournful grandeur, his hoary head covered with perpetual snow,—the magnificent cone of Mount Egmont.^*

The scenery of this region is very fascinating. The bleak shores of the Lake of Taupo are, for the most part, little fitted for European settlement; but from under Tongariro and Ruapehu, stretch away East, West, and South, well-grassed and well-watered valleys, separating mountain ranges that wave with primeval forests. As yet, there is scarcely any sign of human habitation, past or present, in this glorious country; but the native owners are already in treaty to lease large portions of it to English settlers. As we stood together on the lower slopes of Tongariro, one of the Maori lords of the soil, after casting a proud glance over his wide domains, turned to me and said that he had lived through many changes, that he remembered the first settlement of the white strangers in New Zealand, and that he now cherished the hope that the rents of the broad lands of his ancestors would enable him to spend his old age in peace, and to educate his children in the language and arts of the English. He longed before he died to see the fair valleys and plains, now lying silent and untenanted before us, overspread by herds of cattle and flocks of sheep; with English homesteads and townships rising up along the rivers and in the glades of the forests; and with steamboats, bearing the

comforts and luxuries of civilized life over the now lonely lakes. I thought of the speech of Longfellow's Red Indian Chief, Hiawatha:—

“I beheld too in that vision
All the secrets of the future,
Of the distant days that shall be.
I beheld the westward marches
Of the unknown, crowded, nations.
All the land was full of people,
Restless, struggling, toiling, striving,
Speaking many tongues, yet feeling
But one heart-beat in their bosoms.
In the woodlands rang their axes,
Smoked their towns in all the valleys;
Over all the lakes and rivers
Rushed their great canoes of thunder.”^*

A very remarkable feature in this region of transcendent interest, is the volcanic plateau, of which Tongariro and Ruapehu are the main summits, for it forms a central watershed from which the five chief rivers of this Island flow down in their several courses to the sea. Here, within a space of a few miles, are the sources of the Waikato, the Mangawhero, the Wangaehu, the Turakina, and the Rangitikei.^† While riding in the shadow of Tongariro, I was forcibly reminded of my early travels in Eastern Europe, and of my visit, in 1849, to the famous Pass and Mountain of Lacmos^‡ in the range of Pindus, between Thessaly and Epirus; whence issue the five principal rivers of Northern Greece, viz., the Aous, the Peneus, the Arachthus, the Haliacmon, and the Achelous. This is one of the many geographical parallels between Greece and New Zealand which must strike every classical scholar who has travelled in both countries. It has been said that the stirring scene presented under the dome of St. Paul's on the day of the National Thanksgiving in last February has indefinitely postponed the advent of Macaulay's New Zealander to sketch the ruins of the cathedral from a broken arch of London Bridge; but, perhaps, it is not too much to hope that meanwhile there may arise in New Zealand a poet who will paint of the great mountain reservoir of this Island a word-picture, not altogether unworthy to be compared with that noble and original picture which Virgil, in his Fourth Georgic, has drawn of the vast subterranean grotto at the source of the Peneus, in which Aristæus was welcomed by Cyrene, his goddes-mother, and by her train of nymphs;

and whence he beheld the mighty rivers gliding by hidden channels, amid the rush and roar of many waters:—

“Jamque domum mirans genetricis, et humida regna,
Speluncisque lacus clausos, lucosque sonantes,
Ibat, et ingenti motu stupefactus aquarum,
Omnia sub magna labentia flumina terra,
Spectabat diversa locis.”^*—

On the day succeeding that of our return to Tupuaeharuru, we visited Te Huka (i.e., “the foam,”) Waterfall, at the distance of about four miles from the north end of the Lake of Taupo. As Lieut. Meade remarks,^† “This cascade is grand in a style of its own, though not remarkable for great height or breadth.” Some 300 yards above the Fall, the Waikato is contracted into a narrow chasm with almost perpendicular walls, between which the whole body of the river dashes, in a cloud of snowy foam and with a deafening roar, over the rocky brink into the deep blue basin, with its whirling eddies, beneath. From the crevices of the precipitous cliffs around, numerous treeferns spread their feathery fronds; here, too, the Toe-Toe grass^‡ hangs its silken flags amid the violet-blooming Koromiko,^§ and all the brightly chequered copse of New Zealand. The wave-worn terraces of the volcanic hills above bear, stamped on their slopes, the traces of the action of fire and water in remote ages.

From Tupuaeharuru, it is a ride of twenty-five miles to Orakei-korako, a village of the Ngatiraukawas, strongly situated on a hill overhanging the rapids and cataracts of the Waikato, and nearly opposite the famous alumcaves on the right bank of that river. In the words of Mr. Meade^∥:—“The whole of the hills and woods, visible from the crest where the kainga is built, are dotted with hundreds of steam-jets, whose wreaths and clouds of steam keep curling up from amidst the branches of the trees, giving a very singular character to a very beautiful landscape.”

I regret that time and space will not allow me to give, on the present occasion, any further description of my journey overland from Taupo to Auckland. In the address of last year, I laid before the Institute some account of my then recent visit, in company with the Duke of Edinburgh, to the wonders of Rotorua and Rotomahana. This year I have followed the long course of the Waikato—that noble river, which is to the Maoris what the Rhine is to the Germans—almost from its source, near the foot of Tongariro in the centre, to the spot where it flows into the sea, on the West Coast of this Island.

I would refer to the Parliamentary Papers, and to other official records, those who may desire information respecting the favourable effect on the

Very extensive collections of birds from various parts of the world have now accumulated, which it has been found necessary to place in drawers and packing cases, so that at the present time they are inaccessible to the public, and inconveniently difficult of access for reference.

The most extensive recent addition to the collections in this department has been that purchased from Mr. H. Travers, which consists of thirty-seven species and 192 specimens from the Chatham Islands, some of which are new to science or extremely rare.

A collection of seventy birds of California has also been presented by the Academy of Natural Science in San Francisco; 114 birds' skins from Norway, presented by Mr. J. Graff; forty-one European birds' skins, forwarded by Dr. Buller; and fifty-seven specimens of birds are on their way from Germany, having been sent in exchange by Dr. O. Finsch.

The New Zealand birds' eggs have been mounted for exhibition, and the collection has been enriched by the donation of fifty-six specimens of the eggs of British birds, by Mr. T. H. Potts.

The illustrated work on New Zealand birds, by Dr. Buller, referred to in last year's report, is advancing through the press, the first two, out of the five parts of which it consists, having reached the Colony, and the remainder of the work is, I am informed by the author, already in the printer's hands.^*

The Catalogue of the Birds, with the diagnoses of the species, by Captain Hutton, also referred to in last report, was issued in October last.^†

Fishes.—A collection of forty-six stuffed specimens, and forty-one skeletons of the fishes of New Zealand, and ninty-two species preserved in spirits, has been prepared and arranged for exhibition, to illustrate this important branch of the Natural History of the country.

The number of fishes now known to belong to New Zealand is 147 species, of which only about fifteen are not represented in the above collection.

The distinctive characters of the species have been given by Captain Hutton, together with notes on the edible species by myself, in a work issued from this department in May last.^‡

I should also mention the valuable Osteological preparations which have been made for the Museum by Dr. Knox, among which the following are the most important:—Skeletons of a Moriori (female), the Sea Leopard,

(Stenorhyncus leptonyx), thirty birds, fifty fishes, twenty reptiles, etc., constituting a most interesting feature in the Museum.

Shells.—The collections of New Zealand shells, both recent and fossil, have been thoroughly investigated by Captain Hutton, the greater part of whose time during the past year has been devoted to this important work, and he has prepared a descriptive catalogue, which only awaits the receipt of a list of the New Zealand shells in the European collections, which is being prepared by Dr. Von Martens, of Berlin, to be completed for the press.

The total number of existing species of the class Mollusca, represented in the Museum, and described in this catalogue, will be 560; to which must be added 200 species of fossil shells that are now extinct.

Captain Hutton has also prepared a descriptive catalogue of the New Zealand Echinodermata in the Museum, in which he enumerates thirty-six species.

The collection of foreign shells has been added to, during the past year, by 170 American species, presented by Colonel Jewett, of New York, and other collections of minor importance.

Insects.—An arrangement is being made for the publication in England of descriptive and illustrated catalogues of the different classes of insects which are found in New Zealand, as their classification cannot be satisfactorily effected without reference to extensive Museums and Libraries containing works of reference in Natural History. The foreign collections in the Museum have received a valuable addition in a named collection of 332 specimens of the Lepidoptera and Coleoptera of Queensland, from W. H. Miskin, Esq.

Palœontology.—The descriptive and illustrated catalogue of the New Zealand fossils in the Museum is also in an advanced state of preparation; but further examination of certain localities will be necessary before it can be sent to press. The collection of minerals, rocks, and fossils, has been largely extended during the past year, in the course of the Geological Survey; the chief additions being the collections made in Canterbury by Dr. Haast, and Mr. H. Travers in the Chatham Islands and at the Amuri, where he obtained a large number of Saurian bones, in blocks that weigh several hundredweight, but unfortunately in a very hard matrix, so that it is doubtful if they can be extracted in a perfect state.

The chief special collections which have been added to the Herbarium during the past year, besides the plants of the neighborhood, which are constantly being collected by Mr. Buchanan, are specimens illustrating the botany of the Hot Lake and North Taupo Districts, which have been reported on for the Department by Mr. T. Kirk, F.L.S.

An almost exhaustive collection of the botany of the Chatham Islands has

been obtained by Mr. H. Travers, ten sets of which will be available for exchange as soon as they have been reported on by Baron Von Müeller, to whom a complete series has been sent in duplicate for this purpose. The only foreign collections of dried plants received during the past year, have been of Sandwich Island plants, from Dr. Hildebrand, and a collection of British Algœ, prepared and presented by Mrs. J. E. Grey.

The Herbarium now contains, in addition to the Colonial Flora, a very complete set of British flowering plants and ferns, also ferns of New Hebrides, Sandwich Islands, and Fijis.

The chief desiderata necessary to make the Herbarium sufficiently complete for the New Zealand student, are the plants of Eastern Australia and Tasmania.

For convenience of reference, a complete set of New Zealand and British plants is being mounted in books and placed in the library.

Laboratory.—Analyses have been performed during the year by Mr. Skey, to the number of 285, making a total of 1,203 analyses entered in the Laboratory books.

In addition to the analyses of minerals and ores of various kinds, a very large portion of the Analyst's time is occupied with examinations of samples submitted by the Secretary of Customs, under the Distillation and Gold Duty Acts; and the responsibility of the verification of standards, required under the Weights and Measures Act, is also performed for the Colony in connection with this department.

During the past year, sixty lithographic plates have been prepared to illustrate the various publications issued by the department; and about thirty-three original drawings made of objects of natural history and fossils, with a view to future publication.

A general geological map of the Colony, on a scale of twelve miles to the inch, is also in progress.

The small-scale geological map, referred to in last year's report, has now been printed off and distributed, 150 copies having been sent to Professor Owen, at his request, for incorporation with a work which he is publishing on the Extinct Struthious Birds of New Zealand.

The Geological Survey field work has been chiefly directed during the past season to the development of the coal deposits, in accordance with the Public Works Act; the examination of the coal fields on the West Coast of Nelson having been undertaken by myself; those in the Southland District and in the North of Auckland by Captain Hutton; while the coal deposits on the eastern side of the South Island, in Canterbury and Otago, have been examined by Dr. Haast. The chief practical results of the surveys have been published through the Public Works Department, but the extensive additions