was 



88 EARTHQUAKES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. [Ch. XXVm 



(see small Map, fig. 101) was sensibly elevated, j^st before the 

 catastropbe. 



I will now conclude tbis sketcb of the changes produced 

 in 1855 by observing that a question arose as to whether 

 in the region about Port Nicholson the land, after it 

 upheaved severalfeet in January, sank again to some slio-ht 

 extent or a few inches in the course of 7 or 8 months or 

 before September 1855. When Mr. Eoberts left New Zealand 

 three months after the earthquake, there had been no sinkino* 

 of the upraised land, and he felt persuaded that he could not 

 have failed to notice even a slight change of level had any 

 occurred. He ascertained ten weeks after the shock that there 

 had certainly been no subsidence whatever on the coast at 

 Pencarrow Head, and the tides were so irregular long after the 

 earthquake, in the harbour of Port Nicholson and elsewhere 

 that the supposed partial sinking of the coast which some 

 believed to have taken place might perhaps be deceptive. It is 

 surprising how soon the signs of a recent change of level on a 

 coast are effaced to all eyes but those of the scientific observer, 

 especially where there is a rise and fall of the tides. Eocks 

 newly exposed soon begin to weather and vegetation spreads 

 over the emerged land, and a new beach, with all the charac- 

 ters of the old one, is formed in a few months along the 

 sea-margrin. 



The geologist has rarely enjoyed so good an opportunity 

 as that afforded him by this convulsion in New Zealand, 

 of observing one of the steps by which those great dis- 



called ' faults ^ may in the course of 

 The manner also in which the 



C^'' 



acements 



ages be brought about. 



movement increased from 



manner m which beds may 



more 



An independent witness of the earthquake of January 1855, 

 a civil engineer, says in a letter to Mr. Eobert Mallet that ' the 

 first and greatest shock of January 23 lasted about a minute 

 and a half. All the brick buildings in Wellington were 



3 over the Hutt. The hillsides 



t) 



Welling^ton, those of the Eemutaka 



to 



tlii' 

 ■if 



e 



>' 



art 



tbei 



Bin 

 [It 



tra( 

 con 



SOU' 



^ 



qna 



dev 

 lem 



dee 



and 

 sha 



on 



a? 

 pel 



shaken, as evidenced by tlie many bare patches with which 



