572 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



been thrown up from a depth of 15ft. or 20ft., and scattered 

 on the surface to a width of about 20ft., and to a depth of 

 several inches. After taking a cup of coffee, I started for 

 Wanganui, to see how my wife and children had fared. On 

 reaching the pa where the track to Wanganui crossed the 

 Waitotara Eiver, I found the Maoris sitting outside their huts 

 in great alarm. The ground was cracked in all directions, 

 and, as the slight shocks passed along, the cracks could be seen 

 to open and close — a thing which the Maoris said they had 

 never known to occur previously. The Maori mailman was 

 just on the point of starting for Wanganui, so we travelled 

 together. On reaching the sea-beach, along which our route 

 ran for about five miles, we found that the whole face of the 

 cliff was thrown down, and that further small slips were con- 

 stantly occurring. An isolated mass of shell-rock, called " Te 

 Ihonga," similar to the Pulpit Eock at the Isle of Wight, 

 which had stood at the top of the cliff", and had for ages 

 marked the place at wdiich to turn oft' from the beach to go 

 across the sandhills to the Waitotara crossing, had been 

 thrown down and dashed to pieces. On reaching Wanganui, 

 I found that, though my own folks and property were safe, 

 immense damage had been done, particularly in the stores 

 and hotels. The ground was cracked in many places. The 

 foreshore of the river fronting Taupo Quay (which faces south- 

 east), from the quay roadway to low- water mark, was like an 

 ill-ploughed field ; and the alluvial flats beside the river were 

 specially fissured. At what is known as " Sutherland's Flat," 

 about five miles above the town, two cracks, fully 100 yards 

 long, and from 30ft. to 50ft. asunder, extended from the river 

 back into the flat, and the interval between them had sunk 

 down fully 6ft., so that at high water boats could be taken 

 into the llat. Except two low double ones, which were so 

 built into the framework of a house that they could not move, 

 every brick chimney in the neighbourhood was destroyed ; but 

 the pumice chimneys and houses, of which there were many 

 at that time, all escaped injury. There was a brick church at 

 Putiki, with walls about 8ft. high and a heavy roof. Though 

 built with a mortar of shell-lime, specially burnt for the pur- 

 pose, scarcely two bricks were left adhering to each other. This 

 extraordinary disintegration was no doubt due to the weight of 

 the roof, which had come down en masse, grinding the brickwork 

 to pieces. A brick wall at the adjacent mission-station was 

 also thrown down and broken co pieces. Prior to this earth- 

 quake, a good many houses had been what was called " brick- 

 nogged " — i.e., the intervals between the studs had been filled 

 with brickwork, and the inner facing plastered. Nearly the 

 whole of this brick-nogging was shaken down, and what was 

 not so was so loosened as to be unsafe, and had to be removed. 



