Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
far can science mitigate the attendant evils, and thus do something toward
giving that feeling of security which is necessary for the full development
of that part of the country?”
17
Again, after the Owen's Valley earthquake of
1872, Whitney argued for the need to adopt new construction practices,
such as using wood rather than brick and abandoning heavy cornices and
chimneys. He also stressed “the desirability of a scientific record and exami-
nation of the earthquakes occurring on this coast.”
18
Whitney found a sym-
pathetic ear at one San Francisco paper, which complained that “everybody
has become indifferent to earthquakes.” The editor rejoiced that “Professor
Whitney and his party are among us at last. They will try to probe this earth-
quake business to the bottom, and i doubt not will arraign Mother earth at
the bar of Science to give an account of herself and explain the wherefore of
her fatally playful ebullitions.”
19
Whitney's warnings echoed like a pebble
tossed into a chasm of willful ignorance.
“A Very Needless Source of Alarm”
even the first attempt to catalog California's earthquakes did little to dispel
the state's edenic image. it was undertaken by an unlikely investigator: John
Boardman Trask, a Yale-educated physician who set out for California in
1850 as part of the “California company” of John Woodhouse Audubon,
the younger son of the famous ornithologist. The expedition came in search
of gold, of course. But its members were naturalists, keen to explore the or-
ganic life and humbler minerals of the West. Lest one think Trask an oppor-
tunist, an obituary made a point of describing him, in his medical practice,
as “quite free of the acquisitive instinct.”
20
in California, Trask discovered
that his amateur mineralogical skills were in great demand. in 1853 he re-
ceived the first of a series of commissions from the state senate to report
on the geology of California. He touted his research as “an exhibition of
the capabilities of some of our soils for the production of the necessaries
of life, unexcelled in the history of the world.” California's scenery, on the
other hand, was not yet a selling point. Despite the “repulsive aspect” of
the coastal mountain range, with its “naked and barren appearance,” Trask
argued, these hills were “covered with a luxuriant growth . . . affording ex-
tensive pasturage for flocks and herds.”
21
The boosters in the state assembly
could not have been disappointed with his results.
in 1853, Trask took part in another tribute to California's natural riches:
the founding of the California Academy of natural Sciences. it was in the
Proceedings
of the new San Francisco-based academy that Trask began to
publish on earthquakes. Through “careful inquiry of the older residents,”
