Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the Yukon Territory, British Columbia, and the western United States. The
authors targeted a remarkably wide section of the population—including
newspaper offices; private individuals suggested by various sources; US
and Canadian officials, such as Weather Bureau observers and postmasters;
“ministers and missionaries of all churches, and to managers of all canner-
ies, salteries, etc., in Alaska”; “to the secretary of each Alaskan Brotherhood
Lodge”; “and to others.” An introductory note ended with the request “that
you send some reply, even if it be that you know nothing of the matter.”
101
Despite the time elapsed, the scientists reaped about 140 substantive re-
sponses. Fewer than forty of these reported that no earthquake had been
felt, the rest “contained valuable information, either specifying places where
we had not previously known certainly that the shocks were felt, or verifying
information already at hand, or correcting mistakes printed in sensational
contemporary newspaper reports, or referring to still other persons who
had valuable information.” These replies were “invaluable in determining
the boundaries of the region where the shock was sensible to persons and
in verifying, correcting, and rewriting many sections of the text, a few of
the better replies being quoted in full. Those who filled out and returned
the printed circular or showed it to others who did so have conferred a
real favor upon all interested in the advancement of knowledge concerning
earthquakes.”
102
The Yakutat Bay earthquake came to be cited as “one of the most remark-
able for revealing the nature of the earth movements to which the quakings
were due.”
103
As Martin later observed, “in contrast with practically all the
great earthquakes of historic times, the Yakutat Bay shocks of September
1899, stand conspicuous for the absence of loss of life and destruction of
property. This was because they took place in an area largely wilderness at
that time and because the frontier inhabitants lived in tents, in log cabins,
or in low frame buildings.”
104
The extent of the reported damage was the
“shifting of an uninhabited log cabin,” “the cracking of a few chimneys,”
and “slight damage to a wharf.” These shocks were “in the unfortunately
small class of world-shaking disturbances of which one may read without
turning with a shudder at the loss of human life.” Martin might have added
that only in such “wilderness” conditions could eyewitness testimony have
survived of such cataclysmic convulsions. Human constructions would
surely have made the quake lethal.
in 1906, Tarr and Martin were putting the finishing touches on a pre-
liminary publication of their research when a “world-shaking disturbance”
struck the booming city of San Francisco. Writing in haste on 19 April, just
before putting the manuscript in the mail, the authors added a postscript.
