In connexion with the eruption at Ohinemutu there was an incident which it is worth while to record. Should it occur again, the record should act as a sure warning to the residents at Rotorua. Situated some thirty miles from the coast, to the eastwards of Tauranga, there is an island. It rises in the shape of a conical hill clean out of the sea. It was then known as Sulphur Island, or perhaps better as White Island. As a matter of fact it was an old volcano, though never quite extinct. On landing at this island you would have found that the conical hill was absolutely hollow, and that on its base, in the inside, level with the sea, lay a lake, whose waters were of the dark blue hue that only sulphur lakes can show. The specific gravity of the water is very heavy, much the same as that of the blue lake in the Mount Gambier district, in South Australia, at the top edge of which Adam Lindsay Gordon made his famous jump over a high fence. From both the inner and the outer crust of this shell mountain continually poured sulphur deposits, practically pure sulphur. On the outward side of the mountain this sulphur accumulated on the base, towards the beach. It was indeed a glorious sight, on a moonlight night, to look at this peak rising majestically from amidst the waves of mid-ocean, white as a sugar-loaf, as the rays of the moon bathed it with its silvery light. Beautiful as it looked, it was yet tainted with the saddest of histories. Though it was known that at some period or another it had been inhabited by natives, yet no fresh water could then be found within its shores. The only solution that could be found for the fact that it had been inhabited was that some springs of fresh water existed between the low and high water mark of the tide which were known to the then inhabitants, but the knowledge of the situation of these springs had died with them. The sulphur, however, almost in its pure state, was there in abundance, and White Island, at the time I am speaking of, was leased by the Government to a small syndicate, which employed a certain number of hands, and exported the sulphur, chiefly to Tauranga. It was a fine paying game for that merry small syndicate. The conditions, however, under which white men were bound to labour at White Island were as sad and as deplorable as it has ever been my lot to know. Any man who decided to fill sulphur bags at White Island knew that he was going to his last home in this world. The conditions of life on the island were practically hopeless. The strong sulphur fumes ate up one's vitality. One's teeth fell out. Nothing but woollen clothes could withstand the ravages of the fumes. Eyesight failed. The only fresh water available was that which was landed on the Island by the schooners which carried away the sulphur bags. The spirit of those labourers was broken, and they were content to finish their lives under the influence of the strong and adulterated spirits with