THE LATE EARTHQUAKE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 74, 10 July 1869, Page 3

THE LATE EARTHQUAKE.

(To the Editor of the Tuapeka Times.) Queenstown, June 30tli, 1869.

Sir, — I fancy that the earthquake wnich was felt so generally over the province, and of which we may probably liear more from a distance, was more fell here than general, the old.r residents all agreeing that it was the heaviest they had experienced. Most people agree that there were three shocks, the last by far the most violent ; in fact, the first two I myself took for some heavy vehicle passing over a wooden bridge close to the Camp, and looked out of the window to see what it was ; but when the third came on, there was no mistaking it it was an earthquake and no error. The people in the court-house rushed out of the building with great cplerity and clustered with white faces in a group in front of that buildiug. I went at once to the jetty where two small vessels were lying, and asked the master what he felt. He said it was nothing new to him, as he had experienced the same in the North Island ; first there was a rushing sound, then a rumbling, and finally the shocks. The vessels were lifted uj> and dro]jped down again ; they rocked a great deal, but were not injured against the jetty, though the water boiled up in foam after passing under ; from which it would appear that the motion of the wave was vertical, and not lateral as it appeared to the senses on shore. There was a considerable breakage of glass from the shelves of the various stores in the township, and damage was done to theextent of several pounds. Here as on the water the motion seemed to have been vertical. Where the shelves were even, the bottle 3 and tumblers oscilated violently, but did not fall ; if the shelf was tilted upwards they moved to the wall and were still safe ; if however, they sloped upwards, as was the case in one of the principle stores-r-great was the fall in glass, and great the consternation in consequence. Immediately that I realised the fact of its being an earthquake, a phenomenon I had never before experienced, my feelings a3 far as I could analyse them were those of intense ouriosity to know what would come next ; and the nearest approach to the sensation I can describe, was when, on one occasion, I was in a railway carriage, which had got off the rails and was bumping along over the ballast. Two gentlemen coming along in a buggy felt nothing of it at all ; but on returning home afterwards, they learned that the occurence had spoiled the appetites of their numerous station hands, and they saved half a sheep in consequence.

I mu9t also say that I believed the time was 11.20 or nearly, and not 11, as mentioned in another statement. — 1 am, &c., A. H