Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
and go outside, telling myself: one would say a light quake. But I changed
my mind and sat down, thinking I was mistaken.” “Even during the day I
seemed to feel small tremors, but I didn't note them, fearing that they were
an effect of the imagination”; “People made fun of my idea.”
97
In an era
when an individual known for his or her “sensitivity” might be diagnosed
with neurasthenia or hysteria, earthquake observing offered affirmation to
“sensitive,” “nervous” individuals, especially women. “Being a person who
is very sensitive to these phenomena, I have often felt them in this area
without daring to speak of them.”
98
Schardt's correspondents also shared a respect for “science” and, more
particularly, for Schardt as its representative. Most wrote of their hope that
their reports would be of use to Schardt. Some expressed concern that their
observations were not “scientific” enough. A witness identifying himself
only as “un honnête citoyen” wished “to come to the aid of science, of
which you are one of the representatives”; he closed: “hoping that my infor-
mation will help you in your research.”
99
Another observer begged Schardt
three times to forgive him for information that was “imprecise.”
100
on the
other hand, the correspondents' respect for Schardt made them reluctant to
send reports if they had
not
witnessed an earthquake. Scientists actively so-
licited negative reports, which were important for mapping the geographi-
cal limits of an earthquake's impact. Yet they were hard to come by. As one
observer in Graubünden wrote to the canton's reporter Christian Brügger,
“The earthquake was hardly felt here in Sils, it was so brief and weak; for
that reason people naturally balk at being given such a long questionnaire,
which they can fill out so very incompletely.”
101
Members of the Earthquake Commission “took pains to maintain and
stimulate the interest of the public for our work, in part by communications
in the press, in part by public lectures on the present state of the earth-
quake question.”
102
Personal contact between scientists and volunteers had
likewise been a cornerstone of the Swiss meteorological network since the
1860s. Members of the Meteorological Commission visited each station in
their region regularly, not only to inspect instruments and practices but also
because “personal acquaintance with the observers brought transparency
and trust in the mutual relations and secured to no small degree the fur-
ther course of the enterprise.”
103
In the nineteenth-century American West,
it was likewise personal contact that maintained local networks of scientific
observation.
104
Still, Swiss seismology drew more specifically on the central
European tradition of regional natural history societies, where bonds be-
tween scientists and amateurs were often forged through research outings
to noteworthy local sites.
105
