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Historical Records of New Zealand South

Chalky Inlet

Chalky Inlet.

Captain Edwardson, of the cutter Snapper, largely engaged attending seal gangs in this inlet—the upper reach of which is still known as Edwardsons Sound—communicated the following extraordinary coincidence to the Collector of Gustoms (Sydney):—During 1813-14 he had his first gang working the page 169head of the bay. There was then a river of large volume, with a fall (40 or 50 feet) to the sound, opposite the beach on which his party camped. The length of the river was from two to two and a-half miles, fed by a lake; his men reported having visited several times, in quest of eel, ducks, etc. After a few months' residence, the party withdrew, and, again, after four years' absence, when the rookeries were expected to be replenished, the place was revisited. No one is known to have been there in the interim; the few camp appliances left on the ground remaining intact. The river, in the meantime, had entirely disappeared, and no new channel or outlet was found. The sound at the upper end terminated in a lagoon, which had all the appearance of silting up. Between the sound and the lagoon there was a narrow, intricate passage, through which the tide rushed at high-water, and the surplus water discharged itself at low tide. It was not sufficient for the passage of a small boat; being little more than a mere crack. Having spent the best part of two days on the lagoon shooting, Captain Edwardson could speak positively as to the change which had come over it on his return in 1820. It was so great that he was at first disposed to doubt the evidence of his own eyes. It was then opened out into a large lagoon-harbour, with a deep-water entrance channel, large enough for the accommodation of a whale ship. Instead of one head-stream as formerly, two good-sized rivers now fed the lagoon, so that the aspect of affairs had completely changed. Captain Edwardson's idea was the lake had broken out in an entirely new channel, running in amongst the hills, and that, instead of discharging its waters as formerly into the sound, it now found an outlet to the lagoon, and that was what had produced the second river or head-stream. Even then, the opening out of the entrance channel to the lagoon, which, from being tortuous, had become almost straight, remains unaccounted for. Evidently the convulsion which wrought so much havoc amongst the seal islands must have been severely felt at this place.—Patriot (Hobart), December, 1820.

The period indicated by the foregoing was one of exceptional activity along the earthquake-belt of the Pacific and South. Pacific. El Mayon, in Luxon, one of the Philippines, erupted fiercely. The date is given as 1814-15, and is filed as a memorandum in Sydney Record Office. We are told:—It was preceded and announced the night before by frequent earthquakes, concluding next morning with a terrible shock. After this, the volcano was seen to immediately throw out an immense pyramidal cloud of smoke, black at its base, but of many colours in the middle, where the rays of the morning sun fell on it, and ashy-grey in its upper part. After another terrible quake-shock and loud thunderings, the volcano commenced throwing out immense streams of lava. The atmosphere became suddenly dark, and the flashes of lightning were incessant. Then, in the darkness, great and hot stones and hot ashes fell. These reached for many miles about the base of the mountains, and horses and cattle were killed in the fields. The villages were fired by the red-hot stones falling, and the people were crashed or suffocated as they attempted to escape. The rain of hot stones and ashes lasted for three hours, and the darkness for five hours. Twelve thousand people were killed, and many flourishing villages destroyed, and their sites buried and lost beneath the ashes. This was so deep in some places at the base of the mountains that trees were buried out of sight. The Spanish curate of one of the villages, Eather Juan de la Torre, survived, as if by a miracle, and wrote the following account:—I was able to save my life by crawling under the trunk of a cocoanut tree, which was bent over, forming a little shelter. There I lay without my hat, and passing through a thousand dangers. I was accompanied by two wild boars, which had fled from the forest, two swine from the village, a crow with its wings stretched out, and a poor rat trying to protect its young. The eruptions of El Mayon are said by the natives to have been preceded by underground noises, and mutterings like distant thunder. These were accompanied by tremblings of the earth, while the cattle and other animals fled from the mountains.

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Dark Cloud (Chalky) Bay seems to have had a fairly good traffic during the early part of the thirties. July 7, 1831, Captain Briggs, of the Dragon, reported the Elizabeth, with 1600 barrels of oil, Courier (300), William Stoveld (700), and that the Juno had just left, a full ship. On this occasion the Dragon returned to port a full ship. In view thereof, Sydney Gazette, from which these particulars are extracted, congratulates Australian whaling establishments on "this splendid addition to their riches." It is significant that, while the Elizabeth entered in at Sydney, February 1, 1831, with 361 tuns, we find her again, in less than six months, reporting the handsome freight noted above. She is described as the richest whaler that ever entered Sydney Harbour.