EARTHQUAKE WAVES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 2055, 5 September 1868, Page 6

EARTHQUAKE WAVES.

Great surprise was felt on learning that the Tidal Wave, at first supposed to be quite local in its action, had reached the Chatham Islands.

schooner. Rifleman arrived at Port Chalmers onv the 27th ult., from the Chatham Islands, with a cargo of cattle and horses: • She left the Islands on the SJlst, and has consequently made a fine ran. She brought the foUowing information :—

On the morning of the 15th instant the Chathams were visited by three tidal waves, which, although not so large as other parts have been visited with, were attended with loss of life and property. The settlement of Tupunga, situated on the northern side of the Island, felt lhe greatest force "of it. The settlement was entirely destroyed ; not a mark is left to tell where it stood, the ground being covered with sand and seaweed. The inhabitants, principally Maoris, narrowly escaped with their lives. They were awoke by the first wave which came into their houses, and instantly fled into the bush on, higher ground ; they had barely time to escape before the second wave came, foUowed by a third, which destroyed and carried away all their dwellings and everything belonging to them. Captain Anderson's house was washed away, and he narrowly escaped with his wife and children; his residence was about four miles from Tupunga. A Maori, while trying to save'a boat belonging to Captain Anderson, wasYcarried out to sea by the drawback, and lost his life. Farther along the coast, facing S.W., a Mr Thomas Hay, sheep-farmer, lost all he had,, his house and all being carried into the sea, leaving him without a shoe to his foot or a coat to his back. Mr. Amery, who was staying with him, Was awoke by his man-servant, who, on iiearing the first wave, ran in and roused Captain Anderson. Mr. Hood beheves that since it happened he has recovered many of his things. But not so with Mr. Hay; all he found was his watch and an axe.

The Settlement of Waitangi was the scene _ of ; the next disasters. Mr. Beamish's Accommodation House was wrenched off the piles, and a great quantity of Government stores and fencing carried out to sea, with some boats. ; The; beach was strewed with bags of flour, &c. Here, as weU as at other places, people miraculously escaped. Doubtless the river which runs out of Waitangi Bay in a measure saved the place, As the water-rushed up the river it inundated a large flat. The Maori pah being built on high ground escaped j but the Maoris would not return to the pah for Bdays,fearingthewavesmightvisititagain. On the East side of the Island a few Maori huts were destroyed, and some valuable boats. The 'Rifleman 5 was lying at Wangaroa at the time, and fortunately escaped any accident; but in the same harbor huge spars were carried away and lifted high and dry in the "flax on the Opposite side of the harbor.

The force of the Water in Tupunga was so great that drays were smashed, and a great stone weighing 7 cwt. was ■carried a considerable distance.

It will be seen that the above disturbance occurred on the same day that the tidal wave visited our own coast; and consequently it must have travelled with great velocity. Mr. Hood does not state t} « exact time in the morning it occurred. .

The Lyttelton Times of the 17th August Tecords similar facts. It says :—-

The to <ra of Lyttelton was on Saturday morning thrown into a state of great excitement owing to a most extraordinary rise and faU of .the water in the harbor. There can be but little doubt that the shores of New Zealand have either been visited by one of the earthquake waves which are not uncommon in the Pacific, and which have been known to submerge some of the islands there, or that a tremendous submarine eruption has taken place. We learn from Mr Webb, night watchman: on the railway, the foUowing particulars. He states that at 4 o'clock he noticed the John Knox barque lying on her starboard broadside, and her yards nearly touching the jetty alongside of which she was discharging her cargo. He immediately gave an alarm and aroused Captain Jenkins, who came on deck, and on looking over the Bide he saw that the harbor from the wharf to Officer's Point was quite dry, and that aU the vessels and boats were high and dry; he called Webb's attention to this, arid they both noted the fact that the harbor was empty. In a few minutes their attention was directed to a noise resembling thunder, or a strong wind, coming; from off Officer's Point; there wa3 no wind at the time on shore. On looking they saw an immense wave coming up the harbor and mafe ing its way towards the head of the bay. In a few minutes it was surging round _ the vessels, tearing them from the^ different wharves, and breaking their warps like twine. It caught the John Knox barque, and dashed her against the screw-pile jetty, carrying away.her starboard quarter, and snapping her best bower cable, also the 8-inch hawsers, which held her to the wharf. The ketch Margaret, lying on the beach near the Government wharf, had her warps carried away, and on the rebound of the wave she was carried into the harbor, where she fouled the schooner Annie Brown, carrying away her own bulwarks, sta unchions, and mammas •, and also doing some damage to the schooner. J The schooner Jeanie Duncan, which has only just received a thorough overhaul, was lying at the RaUway Wharf, alongside the p.s. Novelty. The former has sustained considerable damage, and the ! Novelty had her .bulwarks and staun- ! chions from the fore to the main rigging destroyed ; her boat was also broken oand drifted under the screw-pile jetty. The | drawback out of the harbor took the Novelty down as far as Gollan's Bay,where she tried to bring up, but her best bower anchor aud chain snapped ; by this time, however, she had steam up, and was able to steam against it. For some hours the tide kept rising and falling rapidly. At 6a. m. the tide was below low water mark, and in a quarter of an hour afterwards, it was above high water mark ; the current was fearful, and the ; water surged round the vessels lUce a twhirlpool. As instances of the effects of this remarkable phenomenon upon theY^hipping, we may mention that ihe ship Coleroon spun round like a top, and the schooner Dove came up the harbor as fast -as a steamer, dead against a westerly breeze, with aU canvas on. her. "The current afterward swept her broadside on for iwo inUes up the harbor, before she was able to get' steering way. At half-past 9 o'clock another roller came into the harbor and again caught the John Knox, which was, at that time, onthemud;: in a few minutes her warps had parted, and the vessel was swung round, fortunately clear of the wharf. The tide again tjommenced to rise and fall rapidly, sometime^ 3 feet in five minutes. At 10.30 the Pilot boat crew arrived from the Heads but it-appears from their statement they had netaced nothing uncommon, only that the tide wa,s very high; the keeper from the quarantine station also came up, but tie had'riot noticed anything except that

at 6.30 the tide was lower by a hundred yards than he had ever seen it.

Mr MitcheU, of Gollan's Bay, states that at half-past 3 a.m. he heard an unusual noise, and at the same time the house was shaken as if by an earthquake. The watch on board the barque A. H. Badger, state they heard, an hour previous to the wave coming in, three distinct noises like rushing wind. From the officer on board the Coleroon, we learn that at 3 o'clock ths water commenced rushing out of the harbour at the rate of 12 knots an hour, and left the vessel on the mud bottom; at 4 a.m. the vessel gave a tremendous lurch, and commenced going round like a top, just as if the vessel was in a whirlpool, and it continued untU 8 o'clock.

(From the Wellington Independent, Aug. 18.)

It is somewhat remarkable that the event was foretold : during the whole of the week a rumor was current in the town that there would be an unusual rise in the water on Saturday, attended with earthquakes. At every publuvhouse bar the common expression was, " We're all going to be swamped on Saturday," of course, generaUy, both spoken and heard in a half-incredulous manner; but we have been unable to trace this ruirior to its source. We can only say that the prognostigation proved correct. On Saturday morning the water rose*in an unusual manner, and consequently great excitement prevaUed throughout the whole town.

The first indication of the wave was about half-past eight o'clock in the morning, and from that hour up to noon, the tide kept " bumping" against the brickwork beside the watermen's gridiron; sometimes rising above high water mark and then suddenly receding. Some people felt considerable alarm, for it was though! to be the precursor of something worse. Those who are given to iU-boding were disappointed. The time for high Water was three o'clock in the afternoon, so that it would be dead low water at nine in the^morning, and the phenomerion was therefore more easily observed. There was a crowd of persons on the wharf all day. People who are very weatherwise prophesied that something was "going to happen," and accordingly discovered in the result, the vindication of their opinion. The greatest observable difference in the tidal level was about eight feet. At Te Aro the water almost came up to the public street, and floated a quantity of timber which lay a distance of 20 yards from the high water level. But a stUl more remarkable effect was caused at the mouth of the JSTgahauranga river, where a bar of gravel has been thrown up to the height of two or three feet. The reasons-given for this extraordinary event are various; some say th&t it is the precursor of a great earthquake; others that it has been occasioned by the recent earthquakes at St Thomas. At aU events, two sUght shocks of earthquake were felt here yesterday morning shortly after ten o'clock. It is supposed that the wave traveUed westward, and some say that it had something to do with a solar eclipse which recently occurred in India.

Much interest and curiosity were caused in Dunedin on the 15th nit., by information that reached the city, that in various places on the coast, the sea had flowed and ebbed repeatedly at short intervals during the early part of the day. As similar disturbances are almost invariably observed to foUow earthquake shocks, inteUigerice that one had taken place in some part of the island was naturaUy expected, The day, although somewhat cloudy, was unusually still and calm, nor had there been any wind during the previous night. The aberrations from the usual steady flux and reflux of the tide cannot, thejij be referred to any atmospheric causes. Nor has any news reached us that wiU tend to explain to what they were owing. From Wellington, our correspondent, at 1.47 p.m., telegraphed that "from daylight, and perhaps before then, the sea has been flowing and ebbing, three feet every quarter of an hour. The glass has been steadUy rising aU the morning. Northern telegrams' report great disturbances at sea."

At 12.15 p.m., a correspondent at Oamaru telegraphed that " An extraordinary rise and fall of the tide here has been repeated many times since eight o'clock this morning. The latest rise was at 12 o'clock, the water flowing over the landing-place and. two feet into the Government Shed, sweeping boats up the Creek. The sea feU again in six minutes. The total rise was 11 feet. At one time, a surf-boat on a line 400 feet from the shore was left aground." .

; FuUer details have'been furnished to us by an eye witness. He states that early on Saturday morning it was known that the sea was rising and falling iri an unusual manner, and during the forenoon he, with many others, visited the Creek. In an incredibly short time the water had risen many feet, and the large boulders that line the shore, near the remains of the Oamaru jetty, were . covered, a heavy surf at the time beating on the coast. He'computes that the rise took place in a few moments, and was so great as to be within a few inches of flooding the narrow strip of land which separates the lagoon irom the sea. The water feU as rapidly as it had risen, and in a very few minutes had gone down, as nearly as could be estimated, about twenty feet. Alternate risings and faUings succeeded each other so quickly, that in less than twenty minutes they were repeated five times. It is said that once, about daybreak, the sea was lower than it had ever been known before. A boat, to which the outer end of the line along wliich the surfboats are drawn, was'moored, arid which at ordinary low water floats in 11 feet water, was le^t for a few minutes so completely dry .that a man was able to walk out and pick up an anchor which had been dropped alongside some time ago. Not a breath of wind was blowing, yet the surf was heavier than usual, and broke upon the beach as furiously as if it had been blowing a strong gale. Thepassengersleavingby the Wallace, steamer, had to foUow a receding wave in order to reach a surf boat. AU got on board safely, but instead of th© boat rising at once On the next roUer, the wave rose over the boat's stern, completely drenching every one on board. They reached the Wallace without further mishap.

At O'ago Heads, the sea was observed rising and falling as at Oamaru. At 9 a.m., about an hour after the flood tide had set in, although the water was quite smooth, is suddenly rose five fee?, without breaking, and reached high water mark. It remained stationary for two minutes, and then as suddenly feU. Inside the Heads the water in mid-channel was quite smooth, the only perceptible rush being on the Rocks and on the banks. At the lower Red. Buoy the tide ran up at the rate of seven knots, and the Upper Red and Black Buoys, although strongly moored about two months ago, broke adrift. The vessels at anchor foUowed the changing direction of the tide, and swung round " ebb" when the wave receded. Throughout the day the water in

Port Chalmers harbor continued to rise and faU during short periods, and the Harbor Master appointed a watchman to record the changes every five minutes. On one occasion the water ebbed 17 inches in two minutes.

In Dunedin Bay, the disturbance was felt, though not to so great an extent. The s.s. Keera, which is being hauled up on the beach near Pelichet Bay Jetty, was left by the workmen, as they supposed, safe, during the dinner hour, as, in the natural course of events, the tide would have been falling. Fortunately, a bystander observing the wa'er rise rapidly, and giving the men notice, they were enabled to take advantage of it, and easily drew ths vesdel up a further distance of twenty-five feet.

The Harbor Mas-er has direc'ed the buoys to be replaced, and soundings to be taken to ascerlain whe her any change has taken place in the channel. The s.s. Otago wared un?il hve for a pUot to come up from the Heads. She took the usual channel, and got safely to sea. There is no reason, thus far, to imagine tha1; the course of the channel has changed, but it is supposed that it has been deepened by the sudden scour to which it has been subjected.

In the laieri River there was a great rise and reflux of the water. One effect of it was that the boat or punt which was moored near the East Taieri Bridge was washed away from its moorings, and when the water retreated it was carried rapidly down the river. The proprietor of the punt got a boat and gave chase, and fortunately succeeded in overtaking it before reaching the broken water at the Bar.