3-008-956 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

View of Auckland, from the crater of Mount Eden, from a drawing by Major Stack, 1862. 'The foreground of this Engraving represents an extinct crater, 600 yards in circumference, 200 yards in diameter, and about 60 or 70 yards in depth. The summit is about 1000ft. above the level of the sea, of which a fine view is obtained, dotted with numerous islands, the triple peaks of the extinct volcanic Rangitoto being most conspicuous, and the great and little barrier islands in the extreme distance... But the scenery for several miles around Auckland...is almost entirely devoid of wood, open, and undulating, dotted here and there with small volcanic hills of moundlike form, and intersected in all directions by the numerous branches of the Waitemata and the creeks of the Manukau. The greater part of the isthmus is already in cultivation; not a stump of a tree has been left in the ground, and solid stone walls and hedges of whitethorn and furze are generally taking the place of the temporary fences of posts and rails. In every direction may be seen grass and clover paddocks, as large, as rich, as well laid down, and as substantially fenced as any grass land in England, and the country around has all the appearance of a homelike English landscape'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.