WHAT THE SEA HIDES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13926, 7 December 1908, Page 5

WHAT THE SEA HIDES.

INTERESTING SPECULATION.

Mr. G. A. Ward, who is a somewhat keen observer of this class of phenomena (says the Bay of Plenty Times, in reference to the Whakatane earthquakes), has furnished the following interesting particulars iTuesday morning's > earthwaves, recorded by a heavy pendulum free to swing in any direction, wore travelling along a line bearing north-east by east and south-west by west (corrected for compass variation), and general evidence from sound, feeling, etc., point to the waves having arrived here from the first given direction, passing away towards the last. Tins line points to no known volcanic centre either way, as produced in the N.E. by E. direction it passes out. through the. Bay of Plenty into the Pacific Ocean almost exactly midway between Mayor Island and White Island, As regards the latter island, it showed no unusual signs whatever on Tuesday, nor for some days previously. Still, assuming that the shake was of a directly volcanic, as distinguished from what may be aptly described as a geological origin, it is well to bear in mind that Mayor Island has, in its younger day, been, I believe, the largest volcano in the Dominion, and its beautiful bush and lakefilled crater could to-day almost, if not quite, contain the whole visible part of White Island, crater- and all. There may, therefore, quite reasonably, be a more or lees dormant submarine centre of activity somewhere between the two.

Mr. Ward adds: Having a further possible bearing on this point, I may mention that my observed pendulum line runs through the well-known Astrolabe reef, lying some seven miles outside Motiti, or about the centre of a triangle of former volcanoes, consisting of White Island, Mayor Island, and Mount Maunganui; this which shows just above low water— abruptly from deep water, and may well be the summit of a former vent, submerged after its lastperiod of activity, but not yet entirely extinct. I may add that the tremor of Tuesday night gave the wave movement from the same direction, and in the last three years I have found two or three instances of the small earth-waves we have experienced, in fact, I believe all with one exception in this period, travelling on this line or very close thereto*