Not far from this point was the geyser known as the Great Wairakei, from which the district takes its name. According to Maori legend, it is said to have been called after an old woman who plunged into its boiling cauldron to end her days. It was formed of an oblong basin of about forty feet long by thirty feet wide, and almost circular, while at its farther end the steep sides of the steaming pool rose to a height of sixty feet, rock-bound, black, and adamantine in appearance. Perhaps, however, one of the most curious features of this geyser was that the edges of the pool were beautifully fringed with white incrustations of silica, pointed and fretted in the form of the most delicate lacework, while down beneath the water might be seen huge masses of silica rock, which had the appearance of the most fantastic coralline formations. White, yellow, and pink were the prevailing colours of these splendid incrustations, and when shining beneath the sun the contrast of the deep blue of the water and the white foam of the geyser, as it threw up its column of steaming water, was very attractive. Right in the centre of the broad basin the hot fountain surged and rolled, bursting up now and again in the form of a sparkling column, and subsiding with a loud, rumbling sound, as if in fury at the disturbing agency below. Enormous volumes of steam circled in the air, but everywhere around its hot sides a clustering vegetation struggled for life upon the heated soil. Within a short distance to the west of the Geyser Valley, and at the summit of a high range of hills, we explored another interesting region of thermal action. It was principally formed by a deep, crater-like depression, with rugged sides, composed of huge masses of trachytic and pumice rock and volcanic earth, from the numerous fissures of which issued white jets of steam. The country hereabouts bore traces of having undergone, at some period or another, considerable subterranean disturbance, and it appeared as if the crater-like depression had formed the principal seat of action. In the centre of this remarkable locality was situated a small lake of oblong shape, with steep, rock-bound, precipitous sides, which rose perpendicularly from the edge of the water to a height of about sixty feet. The water, of a thick, opaque blue, like cloudy turquoise, lay undisturbed, without a ripple upon its surface, save where innumerable gas-bubbles rose from the depths below to give off their sulphuretted hydrogen. At its western end, embowered amidst a dense growth of fern and mosses, was a picturesque cave, through which ran a cold, icy spring of delicious water.