A calm prevailed for several hours in the evening, but a
south-east gale then sprang up and blew all day on the 18th, gradually
working into the south and dying away during the night.

Early on the 20th the 'Aurora' steamed out of the bay, bound north as we
thought, but she returned again in the evening, and we signalled to know
if anything were wrong. They replied, "All well, but weather very bad
outside." She lay at anchor in the bay all next day as it was snowing
and blowing very hard from the south-west, but at 8.45 A.M. on the
22nd she disappeared in the north and we did not see her again for some
months. A few hours after her departure the wind increased in force, and
a continuous gale raged for the next five days.

Sandell and I now made a start at erecting the tide-gauge, and after the
lapse of five days got the instrument into position. We could work on it
only at low tide, for much rock had to be chipped away and numerous wire
stays fixed. The work was therefore of a disagreeable character. Its
appearance when finished did not by any means suggest the amount of
trouble we experienced in setting it up, but the fact that it stood the
heavy seas for the following eighteen months without suffering material
damage was a sufficient guarantee that the work had been well done.

A tremendous sea was running on the 25th as a result of the previous
two days' "blow" and a heavy gale still persisting. Spray was scudding
across the isthmus, and the sea for a mile from the shore was just a
seething cauldron. The wind moderated somewhat on the 26th, but strong
squalls were experienced at intervals throughout the day, and on the
27th a strong wind from the south-west brought rather heavy snow.

On the following day a westerly gale sprang up which shifted suddenly
to south-south-west and south-west in the evening and was accompanied by
fierce hail and snow-squalls throughout the night. Without moderating
to any extent the gale continued to blow on the 29th and passed through
west to west-north-west, finally lasting till the end of the month.

Something in the nature of a "tidal" wave occurred during the night
of the 28th, for, on rising the following morning, I was considerably
astonished to see that the sea-water had been almost across the
isthmus. To effect this, a rise of twenty or twenty-five feet above
mean sea-level must have taken place and such a rise appeared abnormally
high. Our coal heap, which we had hitherto reg