TIDAL WAVES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 175, 23 January 1914, Page 4

TIDAL WAVES.

AXI) EARTHQUAKE SHOCKS. \\ rites "C.N ,\V." on old resident of Jaranaki, to till! editor of tile News:— "1. might be permitted to Miwe.it that some atmosphere of romance seeing to envelop the record of a serious tidal wave having occurred at New Plymouth in IKt.B, us recounted by a Mr, Mc J in an article published in the Daily Nuns of-the 80th inst. I think it may safely he asserted that 110 tidal wave of any moment ever visited tli* shores of laranaki necessitating the flight ot the inhabitants of the town to the summit of Marsland Hill for security. A severe shock of earthquake did occur on a night of October, 18«S, ml 1 much question the earth trembling a week afterwards while the split in the gable of the church was there before 1853, and was eventually filled m with liioi'tiu* mill plastered up. The earthquake of January, 1853, is by some considered to have been quite as" heavy as that of October, 1808. The 1853 shock occurred on a dark, rainy night of Januar, at about 9 p.m., and was accompanied by three loud explosions which seemed to issue from the Waiwakaiho gorge on Mt. Egroont, at about the site of the present Mountain House", or now new Hostelry. The late Mr. Isaac Newton Watt, then a resident of New Plymouth, said some one must have fired barrels' of gun-powder. Nothing of the sort. The explosions were distinctly volcanic or subterraneous detonations. Many chimneys were injured, tin own down, or had to be taken down as unsafe. The late .Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist, in writing of the 1855 earthquake i:i New Zealand, says that tint coast in the North Island rose nine feet, while the shores on the south or opposite side of Cook Strait sunk flv« feel, obliging ships' boats to proceed three miles, higher up the Wairau river for fresh water than ordinarily, owing possibly to the influx of salt water, tho only form of tidal wave probably experienced in New Zealand."