ON VOLCANIC ACTIVITY ON THE ISLANDS NEAR 

 THE NORTH-EAST COAST OF NEW GUINEA AND 

 EVIDENCE OF RISING OF THE MACLAY-COAST 

 IN NEW GUINEA. 



By N. de Miklouho-Maclay. 



During my first stay at Maclay-Coast in 1871 and 1872 I 

 recorded in nay Meteorological Journal not less than 13 shocks of 

 earthquakes (1). Some of them were strong enough to shake the 

 books out of the shelves and make some old trees in the forest fall 

 down. On my return to the same coast in June 1876, I was struck 

 by the change in the aspect of the tops of Mana-Boro-Boro 

 (Finisterre Mountains), which were before my departure (in Dec. 

 1872 ) covered with vegetation to the highest summits, but appeared 

 now in many places quite denuded of trees. The natives told me 

 that during my absence they had experienced on the coast and the 

 mountains several earthquakes, on which occasions some natives 

 were killed by the falling of cocoanut trees in the villages, which in 

 falling destroyed the huts. The villages on the coast suffered more 

 on account of unusually big waves which followed soon after the 

 earthquake, breaking down the cocoanut trees and sweeping away 

 a few huts nearest to the beach. In revisiting the coast villages, 

 I found many not unimportant changes : stretches of destroyed 

 forest by tidal waves after the eai'thquake ; alteration in the 



(1) N. de Maclay Notice Meteorlogique concernant la CV>te-Maclay en 

 Nouvelle-Guinee, in Natuurkundig Tijdschrift. Deal XXXIII. Batavia. Is74. 

 Accounts about earthquakes in the Northern (near Doreh) and South-western 

 portions of New Guinea have been published in the Description of the Expe- 

 dition of the steamer "Etna" in 1858, (Bijdragen to de Taal-Land en 

 Yolkenkunde van Nederlandsh Indie. Deel V., 1S62. p. 78), and are 

 mentioned also in the report of travels of Beccari, D'Albertis and Meyer. 

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