550 Transactions. — Geology. 



in a Native village near Tarawera on the night of the great 

 eruption of 1886. Some three hours before the outbreak the 

 whare suddenly swarmed with rats, and the natives were as 

 surprised as himself at the invasion. No doubt the rats had 

 heard the subterranean rumbling, and thought it advisable to 

 get away from danger, for had they remained they would 

 most certainly have been killed or buried. From this it has 

 been proposed to foretell earthquakes by connecting telephones 

 to the pipes of deep artesian wells and to metal plates sunk in 

 deep mountain crevices. Any unusual noise in the bowels of 

 the earth would be audible in the telephone, and would indi- 

 cate trouble. 



As I write, too — April, 1895 — the volcano Cotopaxi, in 

 Ecuador, is active, and the inhabitants of Quito are terror- 

 stricken. 



The whole of Southern Austria and Northern Italy, too, 

 has just been — 18th April, 1895 — much shaken by thirty-one 

 shocks of an extensive earthquake, many cities being panic- 

 striken (Laylach, Venice, Trieste, &c.), and railways so twisted 

 as to be unworkable. These shocks were accompanied by in- 

 cessant roars of the most terrifying description. At a hundred 

 and fifty miles distance such roars would, I think, somewhat 

 resemble the discharge of cannon. 



With respect to tidal waves, I wish to point out to the 

 people inhabiting the islands of the Pacific the recurrence of 

 the wave in Hatzfeldt Harbour, New Guinea, varying from 

 1 ft. above high-water mark to 25 ft. ; also, the time of the 

 disturbance — viz., twelve hours. As seismic phenomena are 

 frequent in the Pacific, I should advise the people there to 

 look as carefully as they can after their boats and shipping, 

 and to remove themselves and their valuable belongings for 

 twenty-four hours to high ground when any island is visited 

 by what is called a tidal wave, as there is no trusting the 

 damage such an unwelcome visitor may do. Water, when 

 moving forward in a body — for waves do not usually move — 

 has almost as much power as water falling in a body. It will 

 toss upon its crest huge rocks of many tons weight, and tear 

 up and level down almost any obstruction in its path. A tidal 

 wave in an hour will do more damage to an island than a 

 century of storm, hurricane, and rain. 



At Victoria Bay, D'Urville Island (New Guinea) — not 

 marked on the map — there is a salt thermal spring on the 

 south side of the bay, the temperature of which approaches 

 boiling-point. 



Lesson Island, the southernmost of the Schouten Isle 

 Group, is an active volcano, about 3,000 ft. high. Trees and 

 grass reach almost to the top on the northern side ; but on 

 the southern side, nearly the whole distance to the base, the 



