Haasr.— Recent Earthquakes on Land and Sea. 149 
obtained the information from several of the inhabitants living close to the 
sea shore. 
The first wave came about 3 o’clock, but there is no certainty about the 
exact time. It was followed by three others, with intervals of about a 
quarter of an hour between them, and of which the last was the highest. 
A fifth wave came about 8 o’clock, but it was not so high, nor was the 
rush of water so violent, as of those which entered the bay afterwards. 
Between 10 and 12 o'clock in the forenoon another succession of waves, 
at intervals of fifteen to thirty minutes, was experienced. They were 
irregular, but were quite as high as those in the early mornin 
A very high wave rushed in about 2 o’clock in the iitennon, which 
Mr. Bishop considers to be the most formidable and highest of all, and 
which rose 6 feet above the highest spring tides; the altitude of the 
Government bridges above high watermark offering the necessary data for 
that assertion. My informant considers this wave 2 to 3 feet higher than any 
of the previous ones. All the succeeding waves which entered the bay 
were smaller, and continued to flow in until Tuesday afternoon, when the 
tides took their regular course. It appears, therefore, assuming the time 
kept in Pigeon and Okain Bay to be the same, that in the latter locality 
the highest and most destructive wave arrived three-quarters of an hour 
after it had been observed in Pigeon Bay. 
Not having, as yet, authentic accounts from the other bays of Banks 
Peninsula, I may only observe that the highest rise of the water in Akaroa 
was towards 12 o’clock, midday, on Saturday, the 15th August, but it did 
not enter the harbour in the form of a high wave, and altogether did not 
occasion so much damage as in the smaller and more exposed bays. 
The position of Akaroa Harbour, opening to the south, being narrow at 
its entrance, and the water being deeper than in the more northern bays, 
may easily account for this. Before leaving Banks Peninsula I may observe 
that the principal cause of the earthquake waves being there so much higher 
than on other portions of the New Zealand coast, may be sought in the form 
and shallowness of the sea bottom around it. For a long distance easterly 
` the sea is comparatively so shallow that the fifty fathom line lies more than 
forty miles from the land. - 
The 100 fathom line, beginning south of the Kaikouras, close in shore, 
makes a great curve round Banks Peninsula, approaching the coast again a 
little to the north of Otago Peninsula, where, as at the Amuri Bluff, the older 
palwozoic rocks reach the east coast. From these two points they recede 
gradually inland, so that to the westward of Banks Peninsula they are at a 
distance of forty miles from the coast. The lower portion of that volcanic ` 
system below the level of the sea, sloping gently down in all directions, has 
