THE NEW ZEALAND 
ih OF SCIENCE 
AND 
^TECHNOLOGY. 
Vol. III. Wellington, January, 1921. Nos. 5 and 6. 
FOR HOW LONG WILL WELLINGTON ESCAPE 
DESTRUCTION BY EARTHQUAKE ? 
By 0. A. Cotton. 
As is well known, the very severe earthquake which occurred at Wellington 
in 1855 was of an unusual kind, in that the disturbed area^ was situated 
actually upon an earth-block that suffered sudden uplift, the extent of the 
uplift being estimated by eye-witnesses at 5 ft. at Wellington, increasing to 
'9 ft. on the western shore of Palliser Bay. 
a/ 
While Wellington cannot escape being occasionally shaken, along with 
the adjacent parts of the North and South Islands, by earthquakes origin¬ 
ating at one or other of the disturbed areas beneath the neighbouring 
seas, the positions of which have been determined by the late Mr. G. 
Hog ben, or in the Amuri district, where the late Mr. Alexander McKay 
determined the origin of the Cheviot earthquake of 1901, the danger of a 
great disaster lies chiefly in a repetition of the uplift of 1855. 
Such a movement of the land has rarely been observed, but it is not 
difficult to imagine the effects of the resulting earth-tremors on high build¬ 
ings situated upon the block that is actually jerked upward. Warnings 
as to the instability of the site of Wellington have been issued from 
time to time by those who would have us profit from the experience 
of mankind that where destructive earthquakes have occurred before, there 
they will occur again ; but these have fallen on deaf ears, or, just as in 
San Francisco, a city that has been more than once destroyed, they are 
regarded as the croakings of confirmed pessimists. Few attempts have 
been made in Wellington to build so as to minimize earthquake risk, and 
it is very doubtful whether any type of relatively earthquake-proof building 
would resist such a shock, or series of shocks, as occurred in 1855. 
This being the case, it is worth while to inquire whether such an event 
as that of 1855 is likely to occur again ; and such an inquiry attains still 
greater significance when one considers that each such rise renders the 
entrance to Port Nicholson shallower, and that a continuance of such 
shallowing would soon render the harbour entirely useless. 
The only method of inquiry open to us is to examine what has happened 
in the past. An uplift of the land leaves very distinct traces of its occur¬ 
rence. There lies revealed a strip of the former sea-bottom, the rocky 
platform cut by the waves a little below former high-water level, but now 
never completely covered ; a beach-ridge, or storm beach, no longer within 
16 —Science. 
