HoGBEN. — The Wanganui Earthquake. 583 



I am quite prepared to hear it urged in many quarters 

 that we must adhere to old customs, and this, no doubt, will 

 be considered by many as an unanswerable argument against 

 the reforms advocated in this paper. The objections to any 

 alteration in existing methods of measuring time has always 

 been very strongly urged amongst a large number, and was 

 well exemplified by the behaviour of an old couple who lived 

 in 1752, when eleven days were deducted from the year in 

 order to bring the calendar into agreement with the seasons. 

 It is stated that the old couple alDOve referred to insisted on 

 observing Good Friday according to the old style of reckon- 

 ing. " To this end they walked seriously, and in full dress, 

 to the church-door, at which the gentleman rapped with his 

 stick ; on finding no admittance they walked as seriously back 

 again, and read the service at home. But, on the new and 

 spurious Good Friday, they took pains to make such a festival 

 at their house as would convince the neighbours that their 

 Lent was either ended or in abeyance." * 



Aet. LIX. — The Wanganui Earthquake of the 8th Decem- 

 ber, 1897. 



By George Hogben, M.A., Secretary of the Seismological 

 Committee of the Australasian Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science. 



[Read before the Philosophical Instittite of Canterbury, 2nd November, 



1898.'] 



■ Plate LVI. 



The earthquake of the 8th December, 1897, was felt generally 

 in the districts around Cook Strait, from Opunake to 

 Nelson, and beyond those districts as far north and east 

 as Auckland, Gisborne, and Napier, and as far south as 

 Timaru. The returns are sufficiently definite to determine 

 the epicentrum and the velocity, and the circumstances 

 afford a good opportunity of reviewing the data of the shocks 

 in recent years that have proceeded from the same origin. 



The returns received from the telegraph-offices through 

 the courtesy of the Telegraph Department were as fol- 

 lows : — 



Chambers's Astronomy," p. 441. 



