Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/183

Rh to simmer. This was followed by bubbles which increased in number so rapidly that soon there were thousands of them. Scores of them began traveling round the shores.

"They will go right around," said Kiritapu. And they did.

In a sunken basin near Champagne Pool was Echo Lake, its gray walls lapped with cold, gray-blue water, but in its centre a hot spring or a gas-disturbed area. At one point was a small beach strewn with mud-discolored sulphur beads, produced at the lake's bottom by hot water, and ejected by gas. The Government Reserve at Waiotapu covers a large area. Through it runs the Waiotapu River, here a small stream, between steaming banks. In deep basins with shattered walls, half hidden by tea-trees, are hot, quiet pools; in other places are gaping depths, long inactive, or showing only whiffs of vapor. In the midst of this interesting dreariness, concealing its beauty from the ugliness about it, is a fairy-like sulphur cave. Its gray rock roof, softened by condensing steam, is encrusted with sulphur crystals and studded thickly with clear drops of water. The combination looks wonderfully like a yellow frost in which diamonds have been lavishly scattered. Another unique object in this reserve is Lady Knox, an obliging geyser. This geyser will play for anybody who soaps it; and it will do more—it will blow soap-bubbles. No clay pipe in the mouth of the most zealous