NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 2973, 10 December 1925, Page 1

NEWS AND NOTES.

A discovery of great interest was made near Stratford recently (according to the Christchurch ‘Sun’s’ Stratford correspondent). A quantity of volcanic ash and scoria was found in the fork of riiiiu log. The rin.iu had constituted an obstruction to trallic, and so had been sawn off at lhe fork, thus exposing a quantity of scoria which could only have been deposited there at some earlier stage in the life of the tree. The

most likely theory is that the vol•anie matter was deposited by an iruption. The life of a rimu tree

is estimated at (>()() years, and this would seem to prove that Alt. Egmont has been in eruption within

the last 1500 years. As a result of last Friday night’s earthquake, mariners were within an ace of losing the services of the Cape Campbell lighthouse and the

experience of the keeper who was on duty serves to illustrate the severity of the disturbance (states the Marlborough “Express”). The lighthouse, which is a 1)0ft. steel tower, mounted on a solid base of 70 tons of concrete, was swung from the perpendicular by the force of the earthquake until it was leaning over at an angle of almost 45 degrees. This interfered with the supply of gas to the lantern house and the light faded to a sickly yellow and was on the point of being extinguished when the tower resumed its normal position. 4 lie keeper on duty, it is interesting to note, is a seaman, and had never felt an earthquake before.