THE PINK AND WHITE TERRACES
The silicious incrustations left by the overflow from the large pool had
made a series of terraces, two to six feet high, with the appearance of
being hewn from white or pink marble; each of the basins containing
a similar azure water. These terraces covered an area of about three
acres, and looked like a series of cataracts changed into stone, each
edge being fringed with a festoon of delicate stalactites. The water
contained about eighty-five per cent. of silica, with one or two per
cent of iron alumina, and a little alkali.
There were no more beautiful products of nature upon the earth than
those "pink and white terraces," as they were called. The hot springs of
the Yellowstone have produced formations resembling them, but not
their equal in fairy-like charm. One series of these terraced pools and
cascades was of the purest white tint, the other of the most delicate
pink, the waters topping over the edge of each pool and falling in a
miniature cascade to the one next below, thus keeping the edges built
up by a continual renewal of the silicious incrustation. But all their
beauty could not save them from utter and irremediable destruction by
the forces below the earth's surface.
On June 9, 1886, a great volcanic disturbance began in the Auckland Lake
region with a tremendous earthquake, followed during the night by many
others. At seven the next morning a lead-covered cloud of pumice sand,
advancing from the south, burst and discharged showers of fine dust.
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