Historical documents relating to the 1848 Marlborough earthquakes, New Zealand

Abstract

This compilation comprises transcriptions of 107 written historical material relating to the effects of the 1848 Marlborough earthquakes. Background material mainly relating to the greater Wellington region as written in April 1848 is also provided. A summary of the main facts relating to the Marlborough earthquakes, including a revised isoseismal map from Grapes, Little and Downes (1998) is also given. 

Care has been taken to ensure that the extracts are accurate although we cannot guarantee that all the transcriptions are correct. Indeed, due to the difficulty of deciphering some handwriting, several extracts contain blanks where a word or words could not be read. Some punctuation has been added for ease of reading and obvious spelling mistakes have been corrected.

Many of the extracts in this compilation were collected by the late George Eiby whose enthusiasm for history and seismology initiated studies of New Zealand historical earthquakes.