Pacifique

1941 — 8vo. 8 pages, plus a full page map and photographic plates for illustration. Original condition with blue wrappers, titles to front, and containing all the ads. This is a complete issue, seldom found in such good and original condition. Well known mountain climber and painter of distinction, Alan Browne presents a most captivating comparison of New Zealand's Rotorua region, before and after the devastating volcanic eruption of 10 June 1886, a catastrophic event that would permanently alter the area's topography, and claim the lives of many Maoris. Drawing from local accounts of Auckland residents, as far as 140 miles away, Browne describes the tragic event with vivid eyewitness testimony. The region's entire forest was nearly destroyed, as was the area which at that time was uninhabited. Sadly, lives were taken, in the villages of Te Ariki and Moura about one hundred Maori people being buried under rock, ash, and mud. The event abruptly ended the long stretch of hundreds of years without volcanic eruption in the Tarawera mountain ranges. Browne includes interesting photographs and descriptions of the hot lakes in the series of craters that formed as a result of the eruption, Echo Crater and Frying-pan Lake being examples, concluding with a proposal for immediate establishment of a vulcanological observatory, its role particularly geared toward the prediction of future eruptions. An eruption of Waimangu in 1900, and others in 1904 and 1917 are further offered for evidence of continued volatility.