No. 25.
Captain T. B. Collinson, R.E., to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary.

We have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 25th October, informing us that it was the desire of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor that a Board should be appointed to examine and report on the damages, done in-Wellington by, the late earthquake, and further informing us that Mr. Park had been chosen by the inhabitants as a member of the Board on their part, and that the Council desired-that Mr. St. Hill and Captain. Collinson should act on the part of the Government.

We beg to report that, incompliance with that letter, we have examined the damaged buildings, and we herewith enclose a list of them. On that list is stated the manner in which the proprietors propose to repair their buildings, as they have informed us, and also what further measures we have in some instances considered necessary. In those cases where the damaged houses front the principal streets, and in their present state are a nuisance and a danger to the public, we beg to recommend that one month be allowed to the proprietors to repair them. The particular repairs required to such houses are marked in the list as being necessary to secure the public thoroughfares. In addition to the damages mentioned in the list we find that almost every chimney in the town, has been broken down close to the roof. As this is a very dangerous nuisance in a town composed chiefly of wooden houses, we consider it very desirable that the inhabitants should be obliged to build up the damaged chimneys to a safe height above the roof within two months.

The above forms the principal object of the Board; in the course of executing which we beg to state we have been very much assisted by the list of damaged houses drawn up by Sergeant Mills, of page 177 the Armed Police But we further beg to offer a few remarks on the description of building best adapted to stand shocks of earthquake, which may be of use to persons about to build storehouses, which are desired to be more secure from fire than wooden houses. We have observed that those brick buildings have suffered least which have had bond-timbers in the brickwork, or have been lined with wood or weather-boarded; and that a great many gable-ends of houses, in which the wall-plate has not been carried through the gable, have been thrown down, without reference to any particular direction of the compass, and that the gable-ends of hipped roofs on the contrary have not suffered so much. And also that in almost all the brickwork the mortar has been of a very bad description, being composed of lime and clay instead of lime and sand, as it should have been, by which there has been so little bond in the brickwork that many walls have been shaken down in single bricks. The building we recommend for the above object, and for greater security against fire than a weather-boarded house, is a strong wooden frame upon a brick foundation, filled in with brick-nogging laid in mortar, and covered outside with strong laths and plaster, and inside with boards or plaster. But as it is probable that there will be always a great many houses in the town built entirely of wood, we recommend it to the consideration of the inhabitants that all future wooden houses should be separated from each other as much as possible, both as a security against fire, and because the action of a shock is sometimes of an undulating kind, that will take more effect on a continuous line of buildings than on several detached small ones.

With respect to your letter of the 30th October, requesting us to prepare a general report upon the earthquake, to show the direction of the earth's motion during the shocks and other incidents, we beg to add a general account of the occurrence, collected from the different statements that have arrived up to this time from the neighbouring places. The action of the earthquake appears to have extended from about the latitude of Banks Peninsula to the latitude of New Plymouth, the strongest force of it having been in Cook Strait, and in a north-west and south-east direction from thence. It commenced on the 16th October with a violent shock, at 1.30 a.m.; on the 17th there was a second, at 4 p.m.; on the 19th a third, at 5 a.m.; and on the 24th there was a fourth, at 2 p.m. These were all the strong shocks, but in the intervals there were a great number of smaller shocks, varying from ten to twenty in the twenty-four hours, and these continued, gradually lessening in number and force, from the 16th to the 30th October, and from that time to this there have been several more violent than the small shocks. The strong shocks appear to have been felt at all the settlements within the latitudes above mentioned, and, as far as we can determine, simultaneously (but we have no certain data to decide this point), and also with the same character, but less in force in proportion to the distance from Cook Strait, and the line of north-east and south-west direction.

The strong shocks were all of this character: A sound like subterranean thunder, accompanied with a vibration of the ground for a few seconds, and then a quick, heavy oscillation of the earth, which in a few seconds more died away with a quivering motion; the small shocks had not much of the heaving motion, but were more like the firing of a cannon immediately underneath the place; they were sometimes so frequent that it sounded like a distant cannonade, while the earth appeared to tremble incessantly for two or three hours together. The direction of the noise and the motion of the earth appeared to some people to come from the southward, to others from the northward; the buildings that have been damaged are injured principally on the south-east sides and on the north-west sides. A billiard-table in Barrett's Hotel was moved an inch to the south-east. The shocks were felt at Nelson a little more violently than at Whanganui, hardly at all at Hawke's Bay, and as strongly at Banks Peninsula as at Whanganui. Therefore we conclude the line of direction to be north-east and south-west. There have been a few cracks made in the ground at Wellington and at the mouths of some small rivers on the north-west coast, and at the mouth of the Wairau; they are long narrow cracks, not larger than those caused by a long drought.

On the 16th October, eight hours after the first shock it being high water but neap tides, the tide rose in Wellington one foot above ordinary spring tides, but this might have been occasioned by a strong south-east wind which lasted the 15th and 16th. On the 17th it was calm fine weather; on the 19th strong south-east gale; on the 24ith fine and calm. On the 19th and 20th the aurora australis was very brilliant in the south-east, but there was nothing to indicate it had any connection with the earthquake. There was no change in the barometer or thermometer that would appear to have given warning of a shock. It appears to have been felt less on the higher grounds and upon rocky foundations. The last winter had been an unusually rainy season, with little wind, and this is a circumstance which is said to be connected with earthquakes in South America. It appears not to have been felt at all at Otakou or Auckland. Up to this date no eruption has been heard of at any place within the limits of the earthquake as above stated.

We have endeavoured to ascertain the amount of damage done to the town, and we consider that, at the utmost, it is not more than £15,000 in property of all descriptions, and that includes £3,500 of the.Colonial Government and £1,000 of Her Majesty's Ordnance.