442 



University of California Publications. 



| (iEOI.OGY 



topographic features there are very similar to those of the great 

 San Andreas rift, described in the report of the California 

 Earthquake Commission. Parts of the South Island are subject 

 to frequent and violent earthquakes, which have resulted from 

 movements along these faults ; and, it is most interesting to 

 note that surface dislocations at the time of earthquakes had 

 revealed many of these faults to the inhabitants, by whom they 

 were called "earthquake rents," before they were known to 

 geologists. Some of these faults continue across Cooks Strait 

 and apparently connect with known faults on the North Island. 

 One of them is the fault on the side of the Remutaka Mountains, 

 on which the movement of nine feet occurred at the time of the 

 earthquake of 1855. Three of the faults converge in the neigh- 

 borhood of Wellington, and it is quite possible that some dis- 

 placement occurred there at the time of that earthquake, but we 

 have no account of it, and it seems probable that if there had 

 been any distinct vertical movement on these faults it would not 

 have been overlooked. 



Displacements on faults reaching to the surface have taken 

 place at the times of many earthquakes. For instance, the great 

 Owens Valley earthquake of 1872, when there was an increased 

 elevation of the Sierra Nevada along its eastern face ; the earth- 

 quake of September 1, 1888, when fences were broken and offset 

 from five to eight feet at the Clarence fault in the South Island 

 of New Zealand; the Mino-Owari earthquake of 1891, when a 

 great fault appeared across the main island of Japan, with both 

 vertical and horizontal displacements; the Sonora earthquake of 

 1877, when two faults appeared on opposite sides of the moun- 

 tains in the Sonora Province, Mexico; and the Nippon earth- 

 quake of 1896 in Japan, where movements also occurred on two 

 distinct faults ten or twelve miles apart ; and many others might 

 be mentioned. At the time of all these shocks there were very 

 evident displacements along the faults. 



The Cutch and "Wellington earthquakes offer positive evidence 

 in favor of the gradual dying out of the displacement as the 

 distance from the fault increases ; the Clarence, the Owens Valley 

 and the Mino-Owari earthquakes support the idea by negative 

 evidence, inasmuch as no other faults were found to limit the 



