EARTHQUAKE.

Patea Mail, 29 July 1880, Page 3

EARTHQUAKE.

A severe shock of earthquake passed along this coast yesterday, about 15 minutes past five afternoon, the direction being towards Wellington, exactly in line from Mount Egmont to the Strait. The sensation was peculiar, a succession of tremors being felt during about ninety seconds. Persons walking in Patca, especially about Milroy’s hotel, were conscious of an undidatory motion of the earth, some of the tremors seeming to lift the earth considerably. Other persons inside buildings could feel the floor quiver and heave, subsiding into tremors. It is difficult to realise that no damage results to buildings from these undulatory shocks to the earth. Brick chimneys do not show signs of dislocated mortar. Wooden structures will bear considerable strain without injury, but brick or stone walls are less elastic, and might be expected to reveal cracks after.a shaking such as that of yesterday. So severe a shock has not been felt on this coast since the memorable shake of 18G8. A slight tremor passed along the West Coast 18 months ago. Old residents will have observed that these shocks travel always in the same direction. Geologists opine that there are lines of weakness in the earth’s crust, the result of cleavage of the earth during the primeval convulsions which are so palpably testified to in the dislocated and often up-turned strata of the earth. Sedimentary rocks were necessarily deposited in regular lines corresponding to the water levels of the period; and we can now see these water-lines upheaved and dislocated in all directions, wherever a deep face of rock reveals the earth’s record. This illustration of primeval history in nature’s stone book conveys the lesson'that dislocation is the work of convulsions more or less violent; produced by the same mysterious causes hidden in the earth’s bowels, and resulting in similar effects, but on a smaller scale. The theory of central heat, and of a molten centre, with gases given off from volcanic fires, and bursting forth periodically through old vents partly closed up, each burst rending afresh some former lines of dislocated strata, is so large, and. solemn a subject of speculative enquiry that we can only touch the verge of it at present, by ..way of : stimulating • reflection on great problems of the earth’s beginning and duration and ultimate destiny.