250 Linnean Society. [June 21, 



Brig Marmion, on her passage (from New Zealand) to Port 

 Phillip. 



" I shall he rather anxious to hear how the Wellington people have 

 gone on since my departure, for on the evening of Saturday last 

 (1st of January, 1853), while off — some fifty miles west of — Cape 

 Egmont, at 8'30 p.m., we, on board the brig, experienced a horrible 

 shock of an earthquake, which caused the vessel to shudder and 

 shake, just as if she had grounded on a shingle spit ; and indeed, 

 so loud was the sound under us, and so great the agitation, that I 

 took it at the time to be a case of wreck with us, and knowing the 

 sea was running rather high, hardly expected to reach the deck be- 

 fore she might begin to break. The shock lasted about twenty seconds, 

 during which I had only time to secure my watch and compass and 

 seek the deck, when the whole was explained. I had the satisfaction 

 of experiencing some eight others of diminished energy during the 

 succeeding forty minutes, the last of which I measured, and found it 

 did not exceed seventeen seconds. It was about equal in duration 

 to the first, which of course I could not ascertain very accurately, 

 except by reference to the time occupied by any succeeding ones." 



Read also a " Sketch of the Vegetation around Wellington, New 

 Zealand." By T. S. Ralph, Esq., A.L.S. 



This sketch was prepared by Mr. Ralph, during his voyage above 

 alluded to from Wellington to Port Phillip, from his notes made upon 

 the spot. He describes the town of Wellington as situated at the 

 southern extremity of a large port, of about 9 miles in length and 

 varying in breadth from 4 to 6 miles, surrounded by hills which are 

 in many places covered to their summit with trees and shrubs. 

 These hills, being composed almost entirely of a claystone rock, 

 present a marked feature of roundness and abruptness without sharp- 

 ness, and precipitous declivities full of channels and gullies from 

 top to bottom. Wellington itself is built on two flats, with an in- 

 tervening beach-line of houses to connect them, so that the town 

 possesses but a small space of level land, which some ten years since 

 is said to have been covered with dense bush, in which the settlers 

 had no difficulty in losing themselves. But all the hills in the vicinity 

 of the shore have had their timber felled, and the ground has since 

 become covered with an undei'growth, chiefly composed of Lepto- 

 spermum scoparium axidL. ericoides (together known by the name of 

 Manuka), Friesia racemosa (^Aristotelia serrala of Dr. J. Hooker's 

 Fl. Nov. Zel.), Myoporum Icetum, and in some places Myrtus buUata. 

 A few of the deep gullies at the back of the first ridge are uncleared, 



