2 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



forces of nature have been actively displayed to the great terror 

 of those within their influence. The two great European 

 Volcanoes, Etna and Vesuvius have been both active and 

 threatening. In Mexico there have been outbursts of some 

 magnitude, while Java, that great centre of volcanic activity has 

 found fresh issues for the restless forces which underlie her surface. 

 Sub-oceanic commotions have been reported in the Atlantic, the 

 Pacific and in the Mediterranean, giving birth, it is said, in the 

 South Pacific to a new island. But greatest, most destructive, 

 and most lamentable of all was the sudden and most unexpected 

 catastrophe that befel the wonderland of our Sister Colony of 

 New Zealand, destroying her famous terraces, and burying beneath 

 many feet of volcanic mud the most beautiful features of that 

 picturesque country. 



The Eastern States of America were for weeks kept in a chronic 

 state of apprehension by the almost daily series of earthquakes 

 which had their centre in the neighbourhood of Charleston. In 

 Japan, in Switzerland, in Germany, in Italy, in the Eastern 

 Mediterranean, in the Pacific, in West Africa there has been 

 experienced, more or less, a quaking of the earth, whilst in the 

 case of our own land suspicious rumours have reached our ears of 

 a similar occurrence in certain localities, and more recently the 

 news of a serious earth tremor attended by considerable loss of 

 life, has been reported from the Riviera. 



These manifestations of Nature's subterranean forces whilst 

 they cause terror in the hearts of ordinary humanity are in the 

 eyes of scientific workers of the deepest interest. At the 

 centres of greatest activity, Science was ready with her observers 

 and her instruments, and both from the United States earthquakes 

 and the New Zealand outburst she may be able to add considerably 

 to her store of data. 



Prof essor Milne in his volume on " Earthquakes," published last 

 year, has gathered together much information as to the nature and 

 causes of these freaks on the part of our Mother Earth. In Japan 



