Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/191

Rh heavy weight, and just as we arrived at the basin's edge we heard a cracking noise. A San Francisco woman turned round quickly and looked at me. "Oh, I thought you had broken your stick," said she. "That is the Steam Hammer," said the guide. Snap, snap! The Hammer was at it again, almost under our feet this time.

"They are cutting kindling wood down there," remarked another tourist. It certainly sounded something like it.

As we gazed at the pool there was a commotion in its centre. "That is unusual," declared the guide. "This is only the sixth time I have seen the water stirred like that. The Hammer never plays higher than that because of the great weight of water above it. Once it did not play for six years."

As we passed up the slope, the ground shook. The tremors seemed to be far beneath our feet. The Steam Hammer was at work again.

Of all the remarkable sights at Wairakei, the most amazing is the Karapiti Blowhole, or the Devil's Trumpet. It has been called the greatest safety-valve in New Zealand, and one scientist went so far as to estimate its pressure to be one hundred and eighty pounds to the square inch. In its continual action it is unlike other blowholes of New Zealand, which are intermittent. Just what would occur if Karapiti's roaring throat were blocked, no man could foretell, but a tremendous explosion or increased activity in other places surely would result.