a7 
high, hardly expected to reach the deck before 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.” 
Vegetation of Wellington, New Zealand. 
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 nine miles in length and 
varying in breadth from four to six 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, pre- 
sent a marked feature of roundness and abruptness without sharpness, 
and precipitous declivities full of channels and gullies from top to bot- 
tom. Wellington itself is built on two flats, with an intervening 
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 undergrowth, chiefly composed of Leptospermum scoparium 
and L. ericoides j(together known by the name of Manuka), Friesia 
racemosa (Aristotelia serrata of Dr. J. Hooker’s Fl. Nov. Zel.), Myo- 
porum lztum, and in some places Myrtus bullata. A few of the deep 
gullies at the back of the first ridge are uncleared, and contain besides 
some arborescent ferns; but the hills in the rear of the town retain, 
especially on their upper parts, their older clothing of bush, consisting 
chiefly of some trees, such as Fuchsia excorticata, Knightia excelsa, 
Elzocarpus Hinau, two or three species of Coprosma, Geniostoma 
ligustrifolium, Drimys axillaris, Pittosporum tenuifolium, Brachyglot- 
tis repanda, and a few specimens of Br. rotundifolia. These are, in 
the denser parts of the bush, accompanied by Piper excelsum, Ripo- 
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