Hectoe. — Oil UarthquaJces and Wave FJienomena. 39 



must not be expected that tliey can express tlie facts in a very reliable 

 manner. 



The smaller diagram shows the results o£ exact observations obtained in 

 this harbour, at the end of Brown's wharf, during twenty-four hours after 

 the phenomenon was first observed. 



The altitude of each wave, as compared with its amplitude or breadth, 

 has not been ascertained, irrespective of the degree to which it was modified 

 by the local form of the shore upon which it expended its energy ; and this 

 element is absolutely necessary for the purpose of determining the distance 

 at which it originated. Nevertheless, as compared with the ordinary effects 

 of the tidal wave, we can form some conception of the gigantic force which 

 must have influenced the ocean along the coast, when we find that the ebb 

 and floAv which these waves caused in most cases, appear to have exceeded 

 the ordinary local rise and fall of the tide at the different localities. This 

 leads me to expect that waves of such magnitude must have been observed 

 at many points beyond this colony, such as the coast of Australia to the 

 westward, and the Chatham Islands to the eastward; and that we shall 

 receive information from these and probably other localities which will 

 enable us to determine, with tolerable exactness, the focus from which they 

 originated.* 



An earthquake shock appears to have been felt throughout the colony, a 

 few minutes before 10 o'clock on Monday morning, the l7th inst., of a 

 character very different from the local shocks to which we are accustomed 

 in this place. Erom the appended record of telegraphic announcements, it 

 appears to have occurred about three minutes earlier in the north-east, at 

 Napier, than at Hokitika on the west coast of the Middle Island. Napier 

 is situated in lat. 39° 29' S., long. 176° 55' E. ; Hokitika, in lat. 42° 41' S., 

 long. 170° 59' E. This gives a horizontal distance of 402 miles, but as we 

 do not know whether the wave was travelling from the east or the north- 

 east, it is impossible to infer its velocity. 



The following table shows the times at which the shock is reported to 

 have been felt in various parts of the colony : — 



* The following information appears to have escaped the notice of the journals in the 

 colony 5 it is an extract from " Principles of Geology," by Sir Chas. Lyell, 10th edition, 1868, 

 Vol. II., p. 409 : — " Even in the present year (November, 1867) a submarine volcano has burst 

 out in the South Pacific, at a point 1,200 geographical miles from New Zealand and 1,800 

 miles from Australia, between two of the most easterly islands of the Samoa or Navigator's 

 Group, an archipelago where there had been no tradition of an eru}3tion within the 

 memory of man. The outburst was preceded by numerous shocks of earthquakes. Jets of 

 mud and dense columns of volcanic sand and stones, rising 2,000 feet, and the fearful 

 crash of masses of rock hurled upwards, and coming in collision with others which were 

 falling, attested the great volume of ejected matter, which accumulated in the bed of the 

 ocean, although there was no permanent protrusion of a new volcano above its leveL" 



