Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
on “unproven hypotheses” as a distortion of the “scientific path to truth.” At
last, it had been possible “to make space for a calmer mood.”
35
The second speaker was eduard suess, who was then at a pivotal mo-
ment in his career. Five years earlier he had published
The Origin of the Alps,
in which earthquakes figured as evidence for a tectonic theory of orogenesis.
Already, he had begun the work that would absorb him for the next thirty
years—his great global synthesis,
The Face of the Earth,
with its integrated
vision of earth, water, atmosphere, and life (the source of the term “bio-
sphere”). simultaneously, he was deeply engaged in civic projects like water
provision and canalization. Like the swiss seismic researchers Heim and
schardt, suess was convinced that the geologist had a key role to play in the
improvement of society. As a tribute to his renown as scientist and states-
man, the audience for his lecture in 1880 included members of the imperial
family, the minister of war, and other dignitaries.
Toward the end of his address, suess urged his audience to take up the
cause of scientific earthquake observation. He admitted that a scientific at-
titude was probably not compatible with mortal fear: “at the sites of pri-
mary impact themselves reliable observations are normally not obtainable,
because this phenomenon occurs so suddenly and spreads such panic that
few persons can be found, who in mortal danger have the
sangfroid
to record
any observations of a reliable sort.” But suess did not conclude, as Mallet
had, that eyewitnesses were unable to provide scientific testimony. To the
contrary, he called for the “active participation of the entire educated popu-
lation, without which a determination of the affected area [
Schütterkreis
] is
not possible.” Indeed, suess was responsible for the collection of many of
the observer reports used by researchers studying the Zagreb earthquake.
36
He also considered how “such earthquakes normally present themselves to
the eye of the observer.” At a distance from the epicenter, multiple seismic
waves were superimposed, such that the strike might seem to come from
any of several directions.
enlisting the public as scientific observers was a means of transforming
irrational fear, with its potential for social chaos, into scientific curiosity.
suess hinted that the damage from the Zagreb earthquake had been social as
well as material. He described how “ the individual, who is bound to hearth
and family by a thousand threads, suddenly . . . sees these threads broken,
like a plant torn up by its roots.” Tellingly, however, suess resisted the facile
imagery of patriotism.
37
Where Hochstetter had used the language of
Hei-
mat
and brotherhood, suess couched the disaster in democratic and nonna-
tional terms: “As in an instant all social borders, all differences of class fall
