RECENT EARTHQUAKE WAVE ON COAST OF JAPAN 289 
long exposure in wet clothing without shelter and from the brine, 
fish oil, and sand breathed in and swallowed while in the first 
tumult of waters. Besides the generous relief fund subscribed 
by the people, the government has made large assignments from 
its available funds and sent stores of provisions, clothing, tools, 
etc., to the 60,000 homeless, ruined, bereaved, and starving people 
of tlie San-Riku coast. 
The wave was plainly felt two hours later on the shores of the 
island of Yesso, 200 miles north of the center of disturbance on 
the San-Riku coast, the water advancing 80 feet beyond high-tide 
mark on the beach at Hakodate. Eight hours later there was a 
great disturbance of the waters on the shores of the Bonin islands, 
more than 700 miles southward, the water rising three or four 
feet and retreating violently. Six hours later, on the shores of 
Kaui, the most northern of the Hawaiian islands, distant 3,390 
miles, the waters receded violently and washed on shore in a 
wave some inches above the normal height. 
The plainest inference has been that the great wave was the 
result of an eruption, explosion, or other disturbance in the bed 
of tbe sea, 500 or 600 miles off the San-Riku coast. The most 
]3opular theory is that it resulted from the caving-in of some part 
of the wall or bed of the great “ Tuscarora Deep,” one of the 
greatest depressions of the ocean bed in tbe world, discovered in 
1874 by the present Rear-Admiral Belknap, U. S. N., while in 
command of the U. S. S. Tuscarora, engaged in deep-sea surveys. 
The “ Tuscarora Deep ” is nearly five and one-third statute 
miles in depth, being exceeded, so far as known, onl}’’ b}^ the still 
more profound de[)ths discovered last year in the South Pacific 
by Commander A. F. Balfour, of the British Navy.* 
That disturbances were taking ])lace in this tremendous abyss 
was again suggested at six o’clock on the morning of J uly 4, wlien 
the Canadian Pacific Railway Comi)any’s mail steamer Empress 
of Japan, sailing directly over it in a smooth sea, was shaken as if 
a propeller blade had been lost or the ship had struck an ob- 
struction. Every one was roused by the })eculiar shock, but no 
visil)le cx])lanation was furnished. The destructive wave and 
this incident together should stimulate further investigation of 
this dangerous, bottomlc.ss pit of the Pacilic ocean, whieh owes 
its discovery to United States explorers by deei)-sea soundings. 
*.See Nat. Gkoo. .Mag., voI. vii, p. ‘ 26 ' 2 . 
