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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 7 (October 1, 1935)

In the Rotorua Country

In the Rotorua Country.

During the 'Seventies Mr. Smith's professional and official work lay largely in the country between Rotorua and Taupo, where he carried out much important survey work, and at the same time gathered all he could of the traditional history of the district from his Maori assistants and the old chiefs of the Arawa. In the early 'Eighties he laid out the new Government spa township of Rotorua, and it was his foresight that gave it its splendid wide streets. Immediately after the Tarawera eruption, when he was Chief Surveyor for the Auckland province, he made an inspection of the Tarawera - Rotomahana region and wrote an excellent report on the occurrence and the results of the eruption. This was followed by an account of the disaster by that eminent geologist, Professor A. P. Thomas, of the Auckland University College. These are the two standard scientific authorities to-day on that event of a thousand years.

An interlude in Mr. Smith's professional work in 1878 was his despatch to Sunday Island and the other islands of the Kermadec group in the Government steamer Stella in 1878, for the purpose of hoisting the British flag and proclaiming the annexation of the group to New Zealand, in conformity with the decision of the British and New Zealand Governments. Mr. Smith, in his later researches, identified Sunday Island as the Rangitahua of Maori-Polynesian tradition, a place of call on the ancient wonderful voyages of the navigators of the Pacific from their Eastern Pacific homes to the new land of Aotearoa.