Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
were likely to have any scientific training: “Probably in no other field is
the researcher so completely dependent on the help of the non-geologist,
and nowhere is the observation of each individual of such high value as
with earthquakes. . . . even when all conditions are favorable, one can do
no more than ascertain the time as precisely as possible and observe the
phenomena in the immediate vicinity. But thereby only one reliable report
is produced, while for a correct judgment one needs a great many. Only
through the cooperation of all can a satisfying result be delivered.”
6
A Perfect Earthquake
On the evening of 9 november 1880, readers of the
Neue Freie Presse
learned
that, between 8:30 and 9:00 that morning, an earthquake had shaken much
of the Balkan peninsula. Tremors were reported from as far away as western
Hungary, Carinthia, and Lower Austria, and even from vienna itself. The
quake had killed at least two residents of Zagreb, wounded thirty others,
and damaged more than three thousand houses.
7
This was, in short, the perfect object of study for the seismology of its
day. It was a “moderate” earthquake, neither so weak as to go unnoticed
nor so strong as to leave observers in what was typically described as a state
of “senseless panic or utter despair.”
8
In addition, its impact was geographi-
cally extensive, meaning that observations could be collected throughout
central Austria-Hungary.
The scientific response to the Zagreb quake embodied the dualist (poten-
tially trialist) nature of power in the monarchy after 1867. separate investi-
gations were launched in the imperial capitals of vienna and Budapest, as
well as in the south slav center of Zagreb. The imperial Geological Institute
in vienna solicited reports from eyewitnesses, while the imperial Academy
of sciences sent geologist Franz Wähner to Croatia to speak with witnesses
and collect evidence of the damage to buildings. Independently, the director
of the Geological Institute in Budapest was sent by the Hungarian Ministry
of Agriculture, Industry, and Trade to inspect the area, but his inquiries were
almost entirely restricted to assessments of damage to buildings.
9
Mean-
while, the south slavic Academy of sciences and Arts in Zagreb commis-
sioned two researchers to report on the quake.
10
From mid-november to
late December, the scholars from the vienna and Zagreb academies covered
approximately ninety square miles, interviewing witnesses and inspecting
damage to buildings. The scale of the investigation dwarfed that of any pre-
vious earthquake in Austria-Hungary.
