Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 7.1. Camping in Jelaˇi´ square after the Zagreb earthquake of 1880, creator un-
known. source: Jan Kozák earthquake Image Collection.
capital of the crown land of Carniola. In vienna, hundreds of writers and
artists joined forces to produce a volume of engravings and verse to benefit
the stricken city. In the accompanying poems, the contributors conjured
up the monarchy as a “brotherhood” and vienna as its “golden heart” (see
figure 7.2).
4
The liberal press took a similar line:
Where were slovenes, where were Germans,
Where were language strife and power thirst?
Only humans, pale and fearful,
Only humans, trembling, terrified,
Only brothers, equal one and all—
Whom now misfortune—unified.5
5
After the Ljubljana disaster of 1895, the renowned physicist-philosopher
ernst Mach presided (as secretary of the vienna Academy of sciences) over
the formation of the Austrian earthquake Commission. At its height this
network encompassed over 1,700 observers reporting from all sixteen
crown lands. The system's success reflected a culture of earthquake observ-
ing that took root in Austria in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Habsburg scientists insisted that knowledge of a seismic event was possible
only by combining the observations of numerous individuals, few of whom
