The Rangipo plateau, which may be said to form the central division of the great highland of the interior of the island, is in reality considerably higher than the extensive elevated region immediately surrounding Lake Taupo. While the latter has a mean elevation of about 2000 feet above the level of the sea, the height of the Rangipo is over 3000 feet at its highest point on the Onetapu desert, on the eastern side of Ruapehu. This extensive plane of elevation takes its rise a short distance from the southern end of the lake, and extends in the form of broad open downs for a distance of over forty miles, when it merges into the Murimotu Plains as it falls to the south. On its eastern margin are the Kaimanawa Mountains, at the extreme base of which the Upper Waikato rolls in its winding course to join the great lake. Beyond, to the north-west, the cone-shaped summits of the Kakaramea ranges rise up, clothed with a dense vegetation, as they slope gracefully to the shores of Lake Rotoaira in the west, and beyond which there are again extensive plains fringed with dense forests, which slope gradually to the valley of the Whanganui. Right in the very centre of the table-land towers the magnificent cone of Tongariro, situated in the midst of a cluster of lower mountains, whilst close to it and separated only by a narrow valley, stands the colossal form of Ruapehu, peak rising above peak to the region of eternal snow. The greater portion of the soil of this extensive table-land is of volcanic origin, and is formed principally by the decomposition of the trachytic rocks forming the extensive volcanic system of mountains which border it on its western side, and, with the exception of the desert tract above alluded to, which is about eight miles across, it is covered for the most part with a luxuriant growth of native grasses; while it is intersected from one extent to the other by a perfect network of streams and rivers, which flow generally in an easterly direction and form tributaries of the Upper Waikato.