DIRECTIONS TO MASTERS OF VESSELS BOUND TO RIVERTON.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 28, 11 January 1864, Page 5 (Supplement)

DIRECTIONS TO MASTERS OF VESSELS BOUND TO RIVERTON.

From the Provincial Government Gazette Jf i >v.2l. ; : •The.,.en trance Jo this port being intricate, a stranger slic^ld not, under auy circumstances, attempt to sail in without a pilot, but should make fast to the mooring buoy painted black, which is placed in twenty-one feet at low water spring tides with the following bearings : '>. Steep Head, S.E. by E. ! North-west end of Stewart's Island, on with Howell's Point> S. by W. half W. The .flagstaff on Bailey's Point, W. half N. The mooring anchors of this buoy are placed four hundred and fifty feet apart, east and west from each other; on each side of the buoy care should be taken in dropping' an anchor ueav by, not to hook the moorings. On and after the Ist of November, 18G3, between sunrise and sunset tho following signals i will be made at the. flagstaff, on Bailey's Point, viz. : — When a vessel is approaching the harbor a number from Marryat's code indicating in feet the depth of water on the bur at the time, will ' be hoisted at the north yard .arm. ! A black ball hoisted above this number will show that the sea is too high on the bar for the i pilot to get off. Two black balls without the number will mean that some recent change has taken place j in the channel or that it is dangerous in the opinion of the pilot even for a coaster acquainted with the place to attpmpt to run in. Vessels outside the bar or at the mooring buoy, when the pilot cannot get off may hold i communication with him by means of Marryat's I signals which in this case will be hoisted at the i south yard arm. The pilot who is provided with a boat and j crew of four men will, when it is practicable, I always put off in his boat on the approach of a vessel not having the exemption flag flying. The depth of water on the bar is at the highest tides fourteen feet, and there is rarely less than eight feet at high water lowest neap | tides. j J. B. Gueio, Harbor Master. Harbor Office, Invercargill, I 24ih October, 1863. i e^j»uwi>TO«u»»»tucMtaiiuc3ap««»«g!fc'~ i i>xir»gnigg«mpa«r»angiiß»

K-- :; ",;, : -"\ '4 ]^ #»«» -O**- s.) ' .'' "/ ::.■";: ■;':';■ ;H : >m earthquake. The i?V ;.■■:'>: ; ;e all tali us that we have; - .;•;■. - : -- t o '/. .'■' }M expect earthquakes. ' : ■•VW*j as a correspondent . ; ; I tfie great voicauio belt. (■';;;■ Ss^ltiw- links in the chain \ " to Vesuvius, iEtna, ,\ : ': -■/■■ J'.-^i volcano in tho Lipftri '/:■■':■■'■ ''X^fc'e runs under lisa huge ] t ■;; : dearth's crust,-— vrho knows ;' V V v ;y how wide ? A few flimsy li" /strnta have fallen in and i . v ■ eS °f tR e abyss, and here ■ r .^i3 masses below have been ;■-■, ..; ;^y the ebser packing of the ; .K-cnts, and vrr>o knows what - rVci'ss, what hu£c} quantities l:;l .^ned-gas, what seas o<" n.olten «ere 'inay be only a ;'.-w raiies .';■• his fair sucfaee ? There are count up, we- read, '255 vdcCfi. of which 130 '/.'ere in Sootd ,tu v 5 rest ir? Yorkshire, }V.>rbyfales., atid'.the south coast of this ;;.ti4 'There v/&s k violent one in P?rth£i"4,ißi39. Soms twenty yc j wfA Curlier, £ :^U?riday morning, the caf;.-'i'«; Editions rAV.M'id'br.d Counties v--.:; w- shaken thv.lr pews and s^w the pi jster fall. S, iT-^'J, London was •■a^a^y' terrified- It ff-H a worse jci£fe>-fcl\6 $lh of the follow in <* month, ■■ Se.ca;ne so nervous that when a. ;-. ic foretold its ties' -ucrion on the ;vA'pr-U t the inhahita-H;; io<-” to the k& all the supposed day ol vengeance h'OP'er. These isles Elbowed a very pr connexion tviih Portugal when its ','ii-d and a goo ! many other cities ■j-e h.?.if destroyed, rive years after the . ; pii.iCr A vast wave j'hd into Kinsale, and even Loch f,'floi\a rose two or three feet. But >e geologist^ tells us that there are >obably many* .earthquakes which we \ not feel, and-- .that there are proved jjbe regular subsidences and elevaynS of the neighboring continent, Joying the operation offerees from vilich" anything might be expected. ''lieu we are further told that electricity, hd even * a particular state of the fmospheYe^.may produce an earthBut if a small, earthquake, yen an imperceptible' one, why ot an earthquake to destroy a metropolis? But for all this, it does *;b happen" that these isles may be considered exempt from the visitation. VThe ear.th wave 'has been faint, and only =i feeble echo of some distant shock. 3o we ' found ; a law on the fact, and conclude that earthquakes are meant (br.otheilcbuntries. TJiey are intended t,o warn- and punish the wild and fiery populations of semi-tropical cities ; they speak to the superstitious generations ;hat demand a (sign, and will only be :aught by portents ; they are the thunderings and quakings of Sinai. When pities abandon themselves to revelry, and are driven by terror-stricken conBcience to the alt3r ; then, while the lights are burning, a cloud of incense Kirising, and every knee is bended, the walls totter and gape, and down falls the (ponderous vault upon a thousand sinners. Here, in these cooler climes, with more reasonable temperaments, and 'Under a purer faith, it is hoped that we do not need this awful language. The Almighty footfall is soft here, even in ;the earthquake and the storm. A sgood many of our people may still think so, for it was not everywhere, nor was "it everybody that was waked •by the earthquake of Tuesday, October 6. More than half the nation has to accept it on the testimony of the rest. Yet many felt that it will never forget -the feeling, and many even heard it that will carry the " awful '' -sound in the ear to their dying day. Almost .everywhere, strange to say, it suggested "the thief in the night," the rtide inroad of the burglar- In some places it even did damage. It upset furniture and broke crockery; it dis.placed bricks, and even revealed a crack in a .wall. We should not be surprised to hear of more serious damage, ' But if this much, why not more ? The earthquake appears to have been Felt over, a great part of England, whatever the geological formation. People s are not much surprised to hear of a shock or a tremor in the neighborhood 'of coal, aud perhaps even of granite. "Wherever the pitman and the miner go they find inflammable gases. Where, too, the water comes up half-boiling or impregnated with sulphur, one cannot but feel there must be a nearer com--munwation with -that fiery interior wberjeof geologists calmly discourse. But with certain differences, somewhat in conformity- with these popular impressions, this earthquake has moved the whole island.' Britannia's fabled 'rock 'tas been shaken from its basis. Be it only an inch or . two the ocean throne has been tilted up. We. may feel ths terror of the " purple tyrants " who pray as they crouch before the Divinity of Fortune, riepede proruat stantem columnam. In the "black*, country," indeed, and throughout the Midland and West Midland counties, the earthquake ap"pears to have been felt the most. At Birmingham, walls were seen to move, and people rose from their beds to see what damage had been done ; for, though the rumbling grating sound is compared to, that of a passing wagon or train, it was known at once to be something more. At Edgbaston, successive shocks were plainly felt, houses were /onai&i to. their fouudations, " a dread~°.ttte'' was -father felfc than heard. v v CV' /S VT"' "> •- ><"->'-.V - IC> ■? - K \ --*.•>-. -i . r

roused sleepers. From near Stourbridge wo are told that a house quivered from top to bottom, the silver rattled, the furniture shivered, and • it seemed •as if - there had been an explosion under the cellars. In South Staffordshire and East Worcester doors were burst open, crockery and furniture broken, clocks, stopped, and whole populations brought out of their beds. At Cheltenham, a deep rumbling noise was heard, the heaviest furniture was shaken, the fireirons rattled, heavy stone walls were heard to strain and ciack, and the boys at the college were each under the impression that the rest were engaged in making the greatest possible disturbance. The earthquake appears to have extended with equal force to Bristol, to Taunton, to Exeter, to Swansea, and many miles out at sea. In the metropolis, where we all repose on a deep bed of clay, where our houses are well built, and where we are so accustomed to noises, shocks, and tremors, that we are almost startled to fiad it calm and quiet, a large proportion of us felt a sort of shock and shiver, and the feeling of being upheaved, followed by a sense o£ oppression} ; but very few of us Could trust Our own sensations, and be sure it was something out of the usual course. The variety of sensations and the degrees of violence, if there should appear to have been a difference in different localities, may possibly be owing to the variations of geological condition rather than to. the distance from any supposed centre. We believe that stone carries and communicates the earthwave, as it is called, more strongly and truly than softer or more mixed strata. There are, however, conditions under which these strange and fearful waves are said to meet, to escape, and sometimes to aggravate one another. Thus far there is nothing to distinguish this from the general class of earthquakes, of which it is seldom possible to do more than conjecture the centre, and always impossible even to conjecture the particular cause. A very slight alteration in the regions below would be sufficient. Were an igneous vein that had remained for ages iu a state of increasing tension to cool at last so as to crack, and gape by a few inches, that would probably be sufficient to make all the disturbance on the surface which England has just experienced. A sudden explosion, a fall, a shifting of materials that had never settled completely since the beginning, would do the same. It would, however, be idle to allay the terrors of the nervous by the plea that the most tremendous agitation may be produced by a very slight cause. That consideration goes to show that a hundred cities may in a moment become the graves of their inhabitants from some little terrestrial incident, quite infinitesimil compared with this vast and beautiful sphere that we live in. We wiU leave to our readers the moral reflections which so fearful an event is certainly calculated to suggest. There are means, utterly beyond our ken and our computation, far below our feet, by which cities may be subverted, populations suddenly off, and empires ruined. This is a thought which, in its personal application, is familiar enough. Perhaps it is not so familiar in its larger and its national bearing. We see, afar off, a great empire that had threatened to predominate over all mankind, suddenly broken up by moral agencies and shattered into no one knows how many fragments. We are safe from that fate, at least so we deem ourselves, for never were we so united. But there are other weapons of destruction in the arsenal of the Omnipotent. Who can say what strange trial of shaking, or upheaving, sinking, dividing, or drying up may await us? We know by science that isles have gone through many a strange metamorphosis, and science cannot assure us that there are none more to come.