ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 88, 22 May 1877, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

[We are at all times ready to give expression to every shade of opinion, but in no case do we hold ourselves responsible for the sentiments of our correspondents.] TO THB EDITOR OF THE AKAROA MAIL. Sir, —Can you or any of your readers inform me what connection there was between the earthquake wave which reached New Zealand on or about August 15, 1868, and the calamity that some of your contemporaries are pleased to call the earthquake at St. Thomas ? I have heard and seen the thing reiterated so often, that I am beginning to doubt my own idea on the subject. My idea is, that the wave of 1868 was caused by an earthquake which had its chief seat of disturbance in the Pacific, off Arica, on the 13th of August, when the bottom of the sea was raised permanently 2,000 feet, and every ship in Arica was either turned upside down or stranded, and most of the inhabitants destroyed. I fail to connect it with the tornado which swept over St. Thomas, probably accompanied by a slight shock of earthquake on October 29, 1867, which sent sixty ships either to the bottom or ashore, and did other serious damage. Chronology are alike against the absurd idea which is so confidently advocated "by some who should have a little respect for the accuracy of facts made public by the press. I am, &c, J. S.