3-011-606 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mount Egmont, in the province of New Plymouth (Taranaki), North Island, New Zealand, 1862. 'The snow-crested Apollo of mountains, Mount Egmont, or Taranaki...shoots up from a sea of forest 8000ft. into a brilliant sky. Although not the highest, it is certainly the most strikingly remarkable, mountain in New Zealand, and may be seen from a...distance of more than 100 miles. It rises in a perfect cone from a base thirty miles in diameter, and presents nearly the same appearance viewed from every point. Its summit, which is an extinct crater, is flattened; and it is covered with perpetual snow for nearly a quarter of its entire elevation...There are scarcely any outlying settlements in this province, the inhabitants being mostly concentrated in the village capital, and in a belt of farms, hamlets, and clearings lying around it within a circle of ten or a dozen miles. The district of Taranaki has been termed the garden of New Zealand; and, whether regard be had to the serenity of its climate or to the fertility of its soil, it is surpassed by no other locality in either island. This province has been of late, it is well known, the seat of war in New Zealand; and in our Engraving the Omata Stockade is shown, perched on the top of a hill'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.