Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the perceptions of their senses. However only very few are able, with the
approach of such an unusual and terrifying natural phenomenon, to di-
rect their attention to the movements themselves.”
28
Alongside the teachers,
physicians, pharmacists, and civil servants who made up the styrian observ-
ing network were occasional participants without titles. These observers in
turn drew on observations from a far broader segment of the local popula-
tion. In one case, Hoernes received a letter written by an untitled resident
of Kappel, in the mountains of present-day slovenia, which contained (in
Hoernes's judgment) “very interesting data on the perception of the earth-
quake of november ninth in the sulzbacher Alps.”
29
The writer had heard
of a tremor from two peasants, though they were unsure of its direction. He
continued: “I sent my boy to sulzbach in order to conduct a survey, since I
had no success in writing. He made inquiries of several peasants, who had
felt the quake in sulzbach strongly—in two impacts. A time and direction
of the impacts could not be determined, since the parish priest in sulzbach,
from whom I hoped for accurate data, had not felt the quake at all.” De-
spite expectations, then, the priest proved a less valuable informant than the
peasants, even if their reports were insufficiently “precise.” In other words,
seismological research was being conducted by a juvenile and peasants, at
three removes from a scientific expert.
earthquake researchers also collected oral testimony from witnesses as
they made their way through an affected region.
30
The Carinthian geologist
Richard Canaval gave a vivid picture of his own tactics in a report on his
investigation of the Gmünd earthquake of november 1881. His interac-
tions with eyewitnesses were far more intimate and reciprocal than written
correspondence allowed: “I asked the observers with whom I was able to
speak to lead me to the place where they had felt the earthquake, to place
themselves in the position they had been in when it had occurred, and to
show me the direction in which they had perceived the impact. With the
help of a good compass the direction was then determined. It was possible
in this way, with the aid of suitably applied questions (for example which
wall appeared to be shaken earlier) and other data (direction in which ob-
jects swung, rolled away, or fell over, etc.) to correct many erroneous state-
ments.”
31
The British seismologist Charles Davison later pursued a similar
strategy of reenactment: “estimates of the duration of an unexpected and
unusual phenomenon are, as is well known, almost always in excess of their
true value. I endeavoured to check this tendency to exaggeration by suggest-
ing in my circular-letter that the shock should be mentally repeated, the
beginning and end being marked, and the interval timed by an assistant. My
suggestion was carried out in some cases.”
32
In cases like this, observers were
