EARTHQUAKE AT SEA.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume XI, Issue 43, 26 March 1908, Page 3

EARTHQUAKE AT SEA.

WHAT IS IT LIKE. Earthquakes on land are familiar, at least from hearsay, to everybody, but earthquakes in . the depths of the great rolling seas are rarely heard of and even more rarely felt. They do take place, however, and sometimes cause tremendous tid'al waves. It will, be remembered that Mr. Kipling has a weird story of an earthquake at sea. The daily papers recently contained a brief account of the experience of a steamship "Planet Neptune" in passing over the site of a submarine earthquake, and we are glad to be able to supplement this by the story of the first oftiicer. We give it in his own words : "The sea was fairly calm. I was on the bridge with no thought'that anything would happen. Most of the crew were below. All of a sudden there was a mighty cataclysm of the floor of the sea. It could have been

nothing less than a. submarine earthquake. This is not uncommon, as a matter of fact. Several of my friends have had the same experience, but none went through what we did. TONS OF WATER DROPPING. "There was no warning. It just seemed as if the bottom had fallen out of the sea. The big ship just dropped right down'—there is no other way to describe it. It seemed as if wc were going down into a bottomless pit. Actually we were falling into a great hole in the water. It is hard to describe the sensation, for it seemed as though down, down, down we fell—l thought we should never stop, ship and all. I grabbed the flying bridge rails and held on for dear life. But we did stop. And then, to rny horrqr, when I looked up there was a giant wave circling over us and ready to break. ■ ."A moment later it broke upon us, tons and tons of water. It seemed as if the sea had been lifted right up in the air and had fallen upon us. Most of the loose gear on the deck was swept away. We had severed coops of chickens on deck. They were carried away, of course, Two bqats, all the deck gear, water butts —all were smashed and washed away. A dozen ports were smashed in, letting the water inside the ship. I thought we were all gone. But the ship stood the shock. She shivered, her bows rose and up we popped as if she had been a toy boat in a bath tub. We were safe.”—"Science Siftings."