Art. I. — Notes on the Earthquake in Gipps Land. 

 By R L. J. Ellery, Esq. 



[Read SOth August, 1869.] 



The Australian Colonies are fortunately seldom visited 

 with earthquakes of any severity, the worst rarely causing 

 more damage than the rattling of crockery and the alarm 

 of the more nervous of the inhabitants. The Rev. W. 

 B. Clarke, of Sydney, in a paper he read before the Royal 

 Society of New South Wales, on September 2, 1868, gave a 

 catalogue of ] 60 earthquakes that had been noted in Australia 

 between the years 1773 and ]868, and although none of 

 these were of alarming intensity, this veteran observer justly 

 remarks — " Looking at the condition of Australia, so far as 

 is known, and to the history of such shocks as have been 

 before recorded, we are, I hope, at present, physically 

 considered, in no fear of any such great convulsion as has 

 often overthrown cities and desolated vast regions in a few 

 moments ; and yet when we read the records of such disasters 

 as have been chronicled, we have no right to presume that 

 this country may never be so affected." 



Our knowledge of the cause of earthquakes and of their 

 relation, if any, with other telluric or cosmical conditions, 

 however, has never yet been sufficient for founding a tenable 

 hypothesis ; and it is only by carefully noting the peculiarities 

 of these disturbances, in connection with other phenomena, 

 that we are likely to get more knowledge. And this will 

 be my excuse for occupying your time with a few dry notes 

 concerning the earthquake felt in Gipps Land in August ; 

 for, in doing so, all that is now known of this occurrence 

 becomes recorded for after reference and use. 



Mr. Mallet (the highest authority upon the subject) has 

 so thoroughly systematised what is known, that searchers 

 after earthquake information cannot do better than consult 

 his exiiaustive reports on earthquakes, in the proceedings of 

 the British Association. 



On August 30, I received the following telegram from Mr. 

 Saxe, the telegraph manager at Bairnsdale : — "About 4.50 

 this morning two severe shocks of earthquake were felt here. 

 The first shock lasted about a second ; then an interval of a 

 second, and then another shock of quite thirty seconds' 



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