Field. — On Earthquakes at Wanyanui. 571 



leaden clouds hung low, threatening rain. Altogether it 

 seemed a day specially suited to hard work, and yet no one 

 could work. I had a job on hand which I was anxious to 

 complete, yet found it impossible to work at it for more than 

 two or three minutes at a time, with long intervals between, 

 owing to restlessness and lassitude. Every one in Wanganui 

 seemed to have felt the same. The poultry crept about, with 

 their wings and tails drooping, as if they were all ill. There 

 was a herd of forty or fifty wild goats grazing near where I 

 was at work. Ordinarily they ran like deer if any one 

 approached within a hundred yards of them ; but that day 

 I had repeatedly to drive them out of the house or mill, and 

 they even let me handle them. About 6 p.m. a steady drizzly 

 rain began to fall, and continued up to the time of the earth- 

 quake, when it ceased quite suddenly. I had just turned in, 

 at about 9 p.m., when I heard a very loud earthquake-explo- 

 sion, which was followed by a sharp upheaval and violent 

 shakes, accompanied by loud rumbling. I at once lighted a 

 candle to see what was happening, and found everything 

 rocking in a most alarming manner. There seemed to be 

 three shocks joined together. Twice the motion slackened, 

 and then became more violent again. The third time the 

 motion was so violent that my table (a small one, and perhaps 

 a little topheavy with a pile of English papers which I had 

 just received, and which stood on top of it) was turned com- 

 pletely upside down. This was the culmination of the shock, 

 which then gradually subsided, the gyratory action being so 

 violent as to produce a feeling like sea-sickness. Altogether 

 the shock must have lasted fully three minutes. It was 

 succeeded by another, and then by a third, after which others 

 occurred at longer intervals. There was a Wesley an Mission 

 family living about half a mile from me. The missionary had 

 been away from home for some days, but had returned that 

 evening, though I was not aware of his having done so. 

 Thinking his wife and sister must be greatly alarmed, I 

 dressed myself and started in the dark for their house. The 

 track was merely a native path through high fern ; and 

 several times, as I went along, I was fairly thrown right 

 and left into the fern, and could hardly keep my feet. 

 On reaching the house, I found the family sitting with 

 the doors open, ready to rush out if the house should be 

 actually falling. The ladies were to carry blankets, which 

 lay ready folded on the table, and the missionary was 

 to snatch up the little girl, who was sleeping on a sofa. 

 I remained there till morning. "When daylight came, we 

 found that the ground was cracked in all directions, and 

 that on an alluvial flat just in front of the house there was a 

 crack fully 50 yards long, through which sand and water had 



