Tarawera range successively exploded, what is called a "pillar of fire" shot up into the air. It is difficult to understand that this illumination could be produced merely by the electrical discharges from the dust column. Lightning flashes were also observed, and were distinguished from the glare that rose from the crest of the ridge. From the accounts of the survivors, it seems more probable that a column of incandescent lava actually rose up within the mountain, and that the so-called fire was produced by the glow of this white-hot mass upon the volumes of steam that escaped from it. This inference is strengthened by the character of the finer material that accompanied and followed the ejection of the stones and blocks of rock. Enormous quantities of what is described as pumice-sand were blown out of Mount Tarawera, and fell over a tract twenty miles long towards the north. This sand as it fell was hot-so hot, indeed, as to scorch and even set fire to the trees, the burning stumps of which were seen by Dr. Hector in many places. If its temperature was still so high after its flight through the air, it must have been at a red or even white heat inside the mountain. We may perhaps not unreasonably look upon this sand as due to the explosion of the molten lava as it rose within the vent saturated with superheated steam. It is true that the Government geologist watched during two clear nights in the week after the eruption, and failed to detect any illumination of the steam that still issued from the vents along the summit of the range. But the top of the incandescent column might have been reduced so much in height by the successive explosions as not to throw its glare beyond the throat of the volcano.

Among the solid materials ejected during the eruption most attention has been given to the grey mud which played such an important part in the destruction of life and property. As hot mud springs have long been known in the district, and as the site of Lake Rotomahana has been invaded by a group of active mud geysirs, it was naturally enough concluded that the mud which crushed in the houses at Wairoa and prostrated the trees was vomited forth from some of the vents of the neighbourhood. Dr. Hector, however, gives another and more probable explanation. He supposes that the cool south-westerly gale, meeting the great cloud of vapour and dust, drove it away towards the sea and condensed its vapour, which mingled with the fine dust, and fell to the ground as mud. He shows that the mud is absent around the region of the mud geysirs, where the ground is covered with dry sand, and that it is traceable northwards for a distance of nearly forty miles to the Bay of Plenty in the pathway of the wind. It attained a thickness of about one foot on flat ground at Wairoa, gradually thinning away northwards. But where it has fallen on slopes it is readily

softened by rain, and slides down into lower ground. Photographs of the ruined hamlet of Wairoa show the leafless trunks of the trees protruding out of the mud which half fills the roofless houses. It will be long before these deep accumulations of volcanic mud can be turned again into fertile fields, and before the sylvan beauty of the Wairoa woodland can be restored. Where, however, the covering of detritus is thin, it will no doubt soon be ploughed into the soil, and all trace of the eruption will then vanish, save in the effect that may be produced upon cultivation. Analyses of the various kinds of sand, dust, and mud are being made, that the farmers may know what they may have to hope or fear from the visitation of this

summer.

Lava is not known to have issued from any of the vents or fissures of the district during this eruption. The flanks of the Tarawera volcano, however, have still to be examined, and possibly on the eastern side of the range some trace of outflowing lava may be found. If this should prove to be the case, it would be a notable exception to what has been regarded as the rule, for it would show the resumption of full volcanic activity after the geysir stage towards extinction had been reached. There are so many features in common between the New Zealand eruption and the earliest recorded one of Vesuvius that we are tempted to speculate on a possible future for Mount Tarawera like that which has characterized the Neapolitan volcano during the last eighteen hundred years. But, even should such a conjecture prove to be true, the presence of another active volcano in the North Island would probably not sensibly affect the prosperity even of the district in the midst of which the mountain stands. Successive eruptions of varying intensity might from time to time bring with them some loss of life and damage to property. But the crumbling lavas and ashes would by degrees yield soil well fitted for cultivation. Farms and gardens would creep up the volcanic slopes as they have for so many centuries done upon Vesuvius. The mountain might become one of the great sights of New Zealand, and even the object of pilgrimages to the Southern Hemisphere.

Meanwhile, the colony is poorer by the loss of its famous terraces. Lakes of seething, sputtering mud, and geysirs casting forth torrents of hot water and steam, are by no means adequate equivalents for the sinter staircases of Te Tarata which have been so ntterly effaced. It will be interesting to discover whether, after all the commotion of last June, any sinter-bearing springs have been left in such a position as to begin again the formation of a new set of terraces. But, even if this process were to re-commence at once, many a generation must pass away before anything can be built up at all resembling in extent and beauty what has been destroyed.

From the outburst of the long silent Tarawera volcano, one passes

by a natural transition of thought to the story of the old volcanoes of Britain; and the question arises whether there is any probability or possibility that, in the revolutions of the future, the volcanic fires may once more be kindled beneath this country. Probably no area of equal extent on the surface of the globe can show the records of so long a succession of volcanic eruptions as are chronicled within the rocky substructure of the British Islands. Again and again, after prolonged intervals when not only had volcanic action ceased, but when the very sites of the volcanoes had been buried out of sight under deep piles of sand and mud, renewed outbreaks have poured forth fresh currents of lava and cast out showers of ashes where now and for long centuries past fields have been reaped and towns have grown. What has been may be again. And it is worthy of remark that, so far as we can judge of the lapse of time in the far past, the interval which separates the last volcanic episode in the geological history of Britain from our own day has been immensely shorter than that which separated it from the immediately preceding volcanic period. We cannot, therefore, say that a renewal of volcanic activity within our borders is impossible. When we have discovered the causes that led to the repeated re-appearance of that activity during the remote past, we may be able to predict with more confidence for the future. The contingency of renewed eruptions is not one which any reasonable geologist would consider to be near or probable; but it is certainly not one which he would be disposed to dismiss as impossible.

ARCH. GEIKIE.

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

FOR THE EMPIRE.

THE

THE air is full of schemes, fragmentary or complete, practicable or impracticable, good, bad, or indifferent, whereby may be realized the present general desire to give constitutional form to the new material, and therefore political, growth of the British Empire. I propose in this article to explain certain points that have been ignored in the recent public discussion of this great national problem.

The one main question underlying all others may be defined as the participation of our Colonies in the Representative Government of the Empire. And in dealing with this all-important subject it may be convenient to remember that it has its three C's; and that in any united constitutional action the basis must be some mutual arrangement as to common Counsel, in regard to policy; common Control, in regard to measures and actions; common Contribution, in regard to sacrifices in the common cause. As I said, in a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute in December, 1884

"At the present the United Kingdom conducts all Imperial concerns, and provides the necessary revenue. The provisional arrangement is that the United Kingdom is burdened with the supply of an Army, and Navy, and Diplomatic Service, the self-governing colonies undertaking to do their best to defend their own territories, but accepting the risk of foreign wars in return for the protection supplied gratis by the United Kingdom of the lines of communication, and ultimately of all colonial territory. This provisional arrangement will less and less suit actual conditions as the colonies assume greater positive and relative importance."

As a natural consequence, hitherto the control of the national policy has remained in the hands of the mother country, and there

has been no need or desire for the outlying portions of the nation to take part in the national councils.

But, under this protecting and fostering care of the mother country, the newly acquired portions of the Empire have developed with a rapidity due, in great degree, to immunity from the burdens and anxieties incidental to separate political existence, and from the hindrances and dangers attendant on a growth by the light of individual experience alone. Our colonies, peopled from the first by the most enterprising brains and hands the home islands could send forth, have enjoyed all their young lives immunity from attack by foreign foes, and they have also been aided by men and money whensoever internal difficulties arose. It has been recently calculated that the Cape Colony and Natal have absorbed nearly twenty millions of British taxpayer's money for this one purpose alone. But, above this, the emigrants have not only taken with them from the old country a complete body of laws and customs, and a full grown system of civilization, but they have, in their own legislative and administrative action, upheld certain national principles, such as those forbidding repudiation of public contracts, and those establishing a scrupulous regard for law and order, which have attracted the confidence of the capitalist and the emigrant of all nations.

To-day we are commencing to reap the political harvest of all this sowing and watering and tending. The colonies have grown into States. If we add together population of European stock, total commerce and public expenditure, as roughly typical of the value countries are to the United Kingdom, we find that our colonies and dependencies already rank fifth in the list of the Powers of the world-France, Germany, Russia, and the United States alone exceeding them by this standard.

We have within our Empire, but outside the mother islands, already more than 10 millions of British citizens of European stock; and they are associated with 200 millions of subjects of the Queen of other stock, who are, in all parts of the Empire, profiting by the advantages of civilized and peaceful rule, and thereby aiding trade, industry, and commerce, especially in supplying capitalists with labour in climates where "white" labour is an impossibility.

Already we have invested more than 150 millions sterling in Colonial and Indian Government securities alone, while, in regard to over-sea trade, our fifteen chief customers now stand in the following order :