544 Proceedings. 



far north in the South Pacific some of it may have drifted westward 

 along the northern side of the anticyclonic area. It might be conjectured 

 that such unusual conditions of atmospheric pressure had excited actively 

 the great southern volcanic mountains Erebus and Terror, and thus in- 

 directly given rise to the sudden fluctuations of atmospheric conditions 

 which had distinguished the present season. For instance, on Saturday 

 last two marked atmospheric waves were recorded, at 4 a.m. and 11 a.m., 

 similar to that which followed the Krakatoa eruptions of 1884. On 

 Sunday morning (12th instant) the accumulated stresses on many 

 fault-lines in New Zealand were liberated, giving rise to widely-felt 

 earthquakes ; and on Monday evening a remarkably abrupt atmospheric 

 depression, with a violent gale, traversed New Zealand from south to 

 north in a few hours. It might be worth following out the same idea 

 with the view of ascertaining how far the extraordinary fluctuations in 

 Australia, which had caused droughts to occur within a few hundred 

 miles of districts where the most disastrous and unprecedented floods 

 prevailed, might have arisen from such an unusual regurgitation of the 

 ocean-currents as was suggested by the stranding of the icebergs on the 

 Chathams. 



Mr. Maskell had never heard the matter put in such plain language. 

 There was every reason to suppose that Erebus and Terror had some con- 

 nection with recent disturbances. It was strange that this theory had never 

 occurred to any one before. He was not quite clear yet about the con- 

 nection between earthquakes and atmospheric pressure. He had felt a 

 number of earthquakes, but never any accompanied by a storm ; it was 

 always fine weather. It was quite a new view of the matter to account 

 for earthquakes in New Zealand by disturbances far away. 



General Schaw said that when a shock came the wind generally 

 ceased, and then came on again. Moderate shakes might be felt in fine 

 weather which would not be noticed in a storm. 



Mr. Tanner was on the Rimutaka when the earthquake in question 

 occurred, and he was surprised to feel it, as he had always thought that 

 earthquakes were not felt on the hills ; he quite expected that Wellington 

 had been wrecked. On the following night there was a severe storm, but 

 whether it had any connection with the earthquake he did not know. 



Sir Walter Buller was in Auckland when the great earthquake of 1855 

 occurred, and since then had felt hundreds of shocks, but, as far as he 

 remembered, none had taken place in bad weather. 



Mr. Hulke had felt earthquakes with a low barometer and bad 

 weather. There was no doubt that disturbances at long distances did 

 affect us here. 



Sir James Hector said it was not the good or bad weather that pro- 

 duced earthquakes, but differential weather — the difference of pressure 

 when the strain was taken off — that was the time to expect shakes. The 

 difference of 2in. in the barometer between New Zealand and Australia 

 in 1868 caused great disturbances. (See vol. xiv., p. 536.) 



2. "Ona Curious Property of Odd Numbers," by T. B. 

 Harding ; communicated by E. C. Harding. 



The writer, referring to the well-known proposition of Euclid, that in 

 every right-angled triangle the sum of the squares of the base and the 

 perpendicular is equal to the square of the hypotenuse, and the familiar 

 example of the right-angled triangle the sides of which respectively 

 equal 3, 4, and 5, added, "It is not, I think, so generally known that 

 what is here true of the number 3, the perpendicular of the triangle 

 under consideration, is also true of the whole series of odd numbers." 

 Dividing the square of this number, 9, into two parts, differing by unity 

 (4 and 5), we have the base and hypotenuse. Similarly dividing the 

 square of 5 into 13 and 12, of 7 into 25 and 24, and so on through 



