THE EARTHQUAKES IN THE SOUTH. PROF. HUTTON'S OPINION. Christchurch, September 7.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 298, 12 September 1888, Page 4

THE EARTHQUAKES IN THE SOUTH. PROF. HUTTON'S OPINION. Christchurch, September 7.

At the Synod this afternoon the Bishop read a telegram from the Governor, statine I that Sir Arthur Gordon had cabled from Kandy, Ceylon, that he had heard the Christchurch Cathedral tower was de stroyed, and would give £100 towards its repair. A very slight shock of earthquake was felt here at 10 14 a.m. Writing tobheChrtebchurch. "Press" anent the recent earthquake, Professor Hutton, among other things, says : — "Another remarkable circumstance is the extraordinary rapidity with which the earthquake spreads over the surface of the earth, travelling at the rate of about a mile in a second, which is from four to five times faster than the observed velocity of transit of earth-waves through the ground. This, again, can only be accounted for by supposing that the cenbio of disturbance was very deeply seated. But, if we take the actual velocity of transit of the wave through the earth to have been 1,200 feet a second, which is the average of l'ecorded observations, calculation shows that in order to get an apparent surface velocity of fourteen or fifteen miles a second for from 100 to 300 miles, the centre of disturbance would have to be several hundreds of miles below the surface, which is quite incredible. Of course, time observations alone, even if made with the greatest accuracy, are only capable of giving the roughest approximation to the position of the centre of disturbance ; bub it is evident that there is something wrong, either in recorded observations, oi 1 else in our ideas of the interior of the earth, and it ib very desirable that accurate instrumental observations of our earthquake phenomena should be recorded in at least five or six places in New Zealand. The seismograph in bhe Wellington Museum seems to be the only one in the colony, and this appears to register the horizontal direction of bhe wave only, which io not sufficient to determine, the locus of an earthquake. Excellent automatic, self - registering seismographs, can be obtained in England for about £60 each, and any intelligent person could be taught how to use them. But I have written so often in vain about the importance of studying our earthquakes that I despair of bhe Governmenb taking any effectual sbeps in bhe matter."