THE EARTHQUAKES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 306, 27 December 1922, Page 4

THE EARTHQUAKES.

For the reason that the stability of the earth is the basis of trust on which the whole of our material life is built, an earthquake can be the most terrifying of Nature's phenomena. We know that in the course of Nature nothing is permanent, that the mountains dissolve, and cities arise -where was once the stillness of the ocean. But man, living his little hour upon an earth that is infinitely older than all his history,, can trust to nothing visible 60 much as to the ground under his feet. On, it he builds his home and goes about his business and pleasure, and on it he reposes by necessity and force of habit his fullest confidence. Consequently when the earth shakes hia physical life is shaken in its ultimate foundations. The Bible contrasts the house built upon rock with the house built upon sand, but the earthquake may ruin the one as completely a? wind and rain the other. Man knows a great deal more about earthquakes than he used to, but the knowledge brings no comfort. Rather does it increase his fear. He knows that the condition of the earth's crust is unstable, that unequal contraction of rocks or distribution of pressure caused by the slow dissolution of the land produces earthquakes, that there is hardly a limit to their possible severity, and that in the nature of things these visitations will occur to the end of time. It is New Zealand's misfortune to be on a line of unstable equilibrium. The Canterbury Province, Wellington, and the thermal regions of the North Island have been the parts most seriously affected by earthquakes. There is comfort in the fact that although about 1800 earthquakes have been recorded as having origin in or near New Zealand, none has had results comparable with the worst experienced in other countries. Earthquakes in Xew Zealand, the Government Seismologist says, "are rather a, matter of scientific interest than

a subject for alarm." This may seem grimly humorous to some of the Canterbury people who experienced the tremors on Monday last, which in places must have been most alarming. Nothing can be done to prevent earthquakes, but their cause and occurrence can be profitably studied, and something may be done to mitigate their effect. New Zealand provides a fine field for the study of the subject in conjunction with investigations in other countries. The experience of places visited, couple! with the skill of architects, will evolve a type of building that will offer the maximum of resistance. For the rest man must take his chance. He is exposed to "acts of God" when he sits in apparent security by his own firesids, just as he is when he goes to sea. Judging by the absurd exaggerations in the iPress abroad of other New Zealand earthquakes we may expect to see these latest South Island tremors forming the subject of flaring headlines, and comment on the uncertainty of life in what the "Bulletin" is fond of calling "The Shivery Isles," but life in New Zealand will go on just the same.