THE RECENT EARTHQUAKE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 298, 23 December 1897, Page 9

THE RECENT EARTHQUAKE.

DR. HECTOR'S OPINION.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, this day.

At a meeting of the Philosophical Society a discussion took place on the recent earthquake which was so severely felt at Wanganui. Sir James Hector said the reason why more earthquakes appeared to be felt at Wellington than in other places in New Zealand was simply because the records here were more accurately kept. The direction of the recent earthquake at Wellington was from south of east. Wellington lay 16 -miles to the west of Wanganui, and if the earthquake arrived at Wanganui from tlie southwest as reported it must have changed its direction or come from another source. The earth wave came to Wellington from the south of east, and in its passage northward it probably started some fracture or slip in the earth's crust which struck Wanganui and did the damage reported from there. It was evident that the Wanganui earthquake must have been a fresh one produced by the progress of the wave which gave a slight shock here. Two sets of apparatus appwn ed by the Committee of the Royal Society and British Association for observation of earthquakes are now on the way to New Zealand to the order of the Government. When they have been set up this country will be put in direct communication with seismic stations in all parts of the world.