THE PAUPO TREMORS

Hokitika Guardian, 20 June 1922, Page 3

THE PAUPO TREMORS

R E PORTER-' S IMPRESSION S.

WILD RUMOURS CONTRADICTED. TAUPO, Juno 16. ‘‘Yes, mill wo inn give yon a shake i ]>, too,” .said Mrs Crontlier with a iiaijr:, ivken 1 asked the lio.stess of the T«iSipo Hotel ii site could give me a ... hake clown,” when I arrived this aiLcrneoft. “You have certainly come - to the right plac'd for a shake up.” Her husband, who is’ a well-known Taupo

identity, laughed when I supposed they bad had a good fright. “Scared,” he said, '‘not a bit of it. This is nothing to wiint we bad in 1895. Thai was something like. Then it was a case of hang on or be down. You bad to grab hold of whatever was nearest in 1895. Tnupo had a month of really good shakes, which, instead of being vertical, as the recent ones are. were horizontal, and made the earth tremble continuously like a well-made jelly. ’ A FAIRLY good shake. \ few minutes after I arrived .at Taupo this afternoon 1 was welcomed at

I a neb with a fairly good shake, which made tile windows rattle just as though a heavy cart was passing over cobble stones. Then when I went to the telegraph, office to put ill a message th ( . building shook in good earnest, the postmaster telling me it was the host tremor they had had for some little time. The experience was certainly weird, and if I had not been assured that scientists had cotfte to the con-

clusion that tile present phenomenon was really ordinary as earthquakes go. I should have made for the open air If you have never felt a building rocking about your ears an earthquake is certainly most disconcerting, and gives a feeling of helplessness and bewilderment. Tt is rather a peculiar feature of these tremors that are making Tnupo windows rattle that they come along between one o’clock and three, almost with the regularity of

the performance of some of the geysers in Wairakei Valley, which play almost to time-table. Oho thing is certain about Taupo just now. Tt would have settled the latt-ei once and for all for that young mail in tile fairy story who sutlerod from constitutional inability to shiver and shake. He could have been more than satisfied at Taupo anytime during the past few weeks. WIED RUMOURS CONTRADICTED. It is astonishing that wild rumours are living nhoiit Rotorua and district

concerning these T.'inpo tremblings Matata rang up tn-dn.v to know if i was true that Taupo bad boon hlowi up. There were also stories of wholesale evacuation until one (piite expect ed to see tile road littered with flying residents. True, several visitors made a hee-liiie lor Rofonia a few days age when the shakes were very pronounced and a tourist- ut- Itotnrua suddenly cut short what was to have been a seven weeks’ visit, and took himself and his dollars oil to Auckland, hut residents generally me perfectly calm. You can readily understand this when told that during the visitation in 1890, poultry were shaken off trees, cocks crew at absurd times, and horses and cattle huddled together in the corners of holds seared to move. \ oiiOmors i.axds'caim:. v outlay (low li to-day by motor there v.as nothing in tin* glorious landscape • o suggest anything nut the most i aaeaiul spot on earth. The weather' ••as peneet, ’and has been, so loi weeks - -moiC 'like spiing t'rin ai m. , •■ inter. Tlie great laupo I.ake sleeps without a ripple on the uiihroken tii.wer of opaline nine tiuicit ivlleoi.s

1 many romantic headlands and points ol (.millless hays which indent the ’iaupo shore. In the background • ■sos tne majestic Ruapehu, standing serene across the lake m her spotless "• ite mainjv ol snow. Her iioiglib. ur

g.iiirulioe, with his jieneet rone, Luignriru, ami Piliaiiga are innocent. of -I. iv,-, and their puipie bulk makes

.1 cape.m all die fairer by combust, j Although this nunderfill g;d lu ring of ! mountains, i r writing Cm roof <, j' tie • Nm In Island, is over twenty-four , miles oil across rlu- lake, such is Hie tal eiarity ol Hie air in this liigli plateau that they lock just a mile or : so away. Overhead there is not a .-load m the intensely bln le.ni.iis, ' a”.d there i- not even a suspicion of, a zephyr. >•! .u'K ABOVE. TURMOIL HEI.OW. 'i here is a wonderful hush over nature above ground up here, while down below so no uneasy giant of the .in lerworld seems to he writhing in agony. NO SIGN OF VOLCANIC ACTIVITY.' It is a singular fact that the active' volcano Ngaurulme is ohiimniall-. (|i;ict, and lias heeil si. many days. Usuallv he evicts signals, sometimes ••• wliisps of steam that only leave the crater to he lost in air: at other times - over ids head hovers a dark funereal pall. Last Sunday lie gave brie! signs i that lie is only sleeping, thiec tiny steam jets curling aloft, one from each edge of the crater, ami one from the centre. Whether ihcie he rny eon- 1 nection between bis rather ominous

quiescence and the presmit subterranean rumblings anil qmtkings, one cannot say. So fur as I have been able to gather, the earth's crust does not show any tiace of the internal uneasiness, with Hie exception of a fairly long rift on the west of Taupn report<d bv Mr Arthur Grace. This is said to he two feet wide, and one side > hows a drop of one foot.

GEYSER AC HATTY NORM AL. All • evser ami : 11 1 • - thermal aetiu-i rt Wairakei and elsewhere is norma!.-* Wair-ikei has experieneed the icost pionoiineed ’quakes of nnv ill the disirict. Nothing is felt at Tokatui or' at the southern end of the lake. Rotorua,' also, is perfectly normal. ■ Wlien T said no damage was done, I omitted to say that- a few buttles were knocked off a shelf at Wairakei Valiev. There was one slip up the Wnilakei Valiev, some fifty tons of earth coming down, hut that is not alarming in a district ol pumice cliffs and hunks. ORIGIN OF THE ’(H AKES. So far as can he judged, the 'quakes have originated at more than one point west, of Taupo and Wairakei, and i believe the scientific view will eonfirm the opinion that there is nothing ol a volcanic nature about them. What .lias probably happened is that one of those subterr.mean readjustments that are so well -known to geologists has taken place, and the ’quakes are the uneasy movements of Mother Earth settling down '•> him new l-u-o| where the fault has come to rest.