Downing Street,
1st June, 1848.

Sir,

It has become my melancholy duty to communicate to you the intelligence of the decease of Her Royal Highness the Princess Sophia, which event took place at Kensington Palace, on Saturday, the 27th May.

I am Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
(Signed) G Grey.

To Governor Grey, Esq., &c.

Colonial Secretary’s Office,
Wellington, 1st December, 1848.

HIS EXCELLENCY THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR has been pleased to direct the publication of the following Reports for general information.

By His Excellency’s Command,

ALFRED DOMETT,
Colonial Secretary.

Wellington,
November 21st, 1848.

Sir,—We have the honor 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 damage 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 in compliance 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 the damaged houses, drawn up by Sergeant Mills of the Armed Police.

But we further beg to offer a few Remarks on the description of building best adapted to stand shocks of earthquakes, 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 weatherboarded; 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 weatherboarded house, is a strong wooden frame upon a brick foundation, filled in with bricknogging 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’s Strait, and in a N.W. and S.E. direction from thence.

It commenced on October 16th with a strong shock at 1h. 30m. a.m.; on the 17th there was a second at 4 p.m.; on the 19th a third at 5 a.m.; on the 24th there was a fourth at 2 p.m.