e o'clock the water again retired,
very slowly as before, not reaching its lowest ebb until six. An hour
later a second huge wave inundated the port. Four times the sea
retired and returned with great power at intervals of about two hours.
Afterward the oscillation of the water was less considerable, but it
had not wholly ceased until August 17th, and only on the 18th did the
regular ebb and flow of the tide recommence.

Around the Samoa group the water rose and fell once in every fifteen
minutes, while on the shores of New Zealand each oscillation lasted no
less than two hours. Doubtless the different depths of water, the
irregular conformation of the island groups, and other like
circumstances, were principally concerned in producing these singular
variations. Yet they do not seem fully sufficient to account for so
wide a range of difference. Possibly a cause yet unnoticed may have
had something to do with the peculiarity. In waves of such enormous
extent it would be quite impossible to determine whether the course of
the wave motion was directed full upon a line of shore or more or less
obliquely. It is clear that in the former case the waves would seem to
follow each other more swiftly than in the latter, even though there
were no difference in their velocity.

Far on beyond the shores of New Zealand the great wave coursed,
reaching at length the coast of Australia. At dawn of August 14th
Moreton Bay was visited by five well-marked waves. At Newcastle, on
the Hunter River, the sea rose and fell several times in a remarkable
manner, the oscillatory motion commencing at half-past six in the
morning. But the most significant evidence of the extent to which the
sea-wave travelled in this direction was afforded at Port Fairy,
Belfast, South Victoria. Here the oscillation of the water was
distinctly perceived at midday on August 14th; and yet, to reach this
point, the sea-wave must not only have travelled on a circuitous
course nearly equal in length to half the circumference of the earth,
but must have passed through Bass's Straits, between Australia and Van
Diemen's Land, and so have lost a considerable portion of its force
and dimensions. When wL remember that had not the effects of the
earth-shock on the water been limited by the shores of South America,
a wave of disturbance equal in extent to that which travelled westward
would have swept toward the east, we see that the force of the shock
was sufficient to have d