Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
a British diplomat in the Philippines, felt her first “slight earthquake” in
Manila in 1905: “it was my first experience of that form of excitement, and i
am sure that i don't want another. . . . i don't think i like earthquakes.” Still,
she was “sorry now that i did not go on to the balcony” when her husband
“invited” her to “see the street moving.”
15
Nineteenth-century travelers reported on earthquakes in all their facets.
They interviewed native witnesses, described geological, atmospheric, archi-
tectural, and social conditions, and collected archival documents and oral
traditions. To guide them, scientists furnished travelers with instructions for
the observation of earthquakes. The first edition of the British Admiralty's
Manual of Scientific Enquiry
(1851) included an extensive chapter by Rob-
ert Mallet, still several years from his architectural method of earthquake
survey. The manual was addressed to an educated elite, an audience that
might be expected to follow Mallet's instructions for watching a second
hand during an upheaval or building a seismoscope out of a barometer.
Mallet instructed travelers to seek out and question local residents: “The
opinions of old observers as to changes of climate or season; the occur-
rence of pestilences, failure of crops, &c., in relation to earthquakes, while
they must be received with caution, should not be disregarded.” Attention
should likewise be paid to local “records or trustworthy traditions in vol-
canic countries or those neighbouring to them, as to the state of activity or
repose of those vents for a long period prior to and during the quake.”
16
A German counterpart to the Admiralty's manual was published in 1875
under the title
Introduction to Scientific Observation for Travelers.
The chapter
on earthquakes was authored by Karl von Seebach, a Göttingen geologist
who had studied the volcanoes of the Greek isles and Central America. Like
Mallet, Seebach encouraged travelers to collect information on a wide vari-
ety of phenomena possibly associated with earthquakes, including weather
events, geological changes, and animal behavior. He urged them to dig up
records of past temblors in local archives, municipal and parish registers,
and family chronicles.
17
in these ways, between the 1850s and 1880s, euro-
peans were charting worldwide seismic hazard as a Humboldtian project:
eclectic, holistic, and cooperative.
18
Humboldt at Cumana
The victorian fascination with earthquakes reflected in part the place of
the Lisbon tragedy of 1755 in nineteenth-century accounts of european in-
tellectual history. Like many children of the enlightenment, the poet and
