The Human Seismograph - The Earthquake Observers - page 1

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The Human Seismograph
The word “seismology” was coined in the 1850s, not long after the word
“scientist”—both harbingers of a new age of technical expertise. 1 earth-
quakes, however, did not fit easily into the emerging rubric of professional
science, not least because they forced scholars to rely on the testimony of
common folk. Already in the sixteenth century, when stories of the new
World were first circulating in europe, Michel de Montaigne remarked that
earthquakes compelled europeans to trust the word of “barbarians.” In a
crucial twist, however, Montaigne suggested that the barbarian might prove
the more able witness: “a simple, crude fellow—a character fit to bear true
witness; for clever people observe more things and more curiously, but they
interpret them; and to lend weight and conviction to their interpretation,
they cannot help altering history a little.” 2 echoes of Montaigne's charitable
perspective could be found in subsequent european studies of earthquakes,
in the virtues sometimes attributed to untutored observers. Well after Mon-
taigne's death, earthquakes were still widely discussed across divides of birth
and education. eighteenth-century sermons and news articles engaged the
public in scientific and theological debates about earthquakes. 3 Accounts of
the new Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12 became “a form of conversation,”
in which settlers modeled their descriptions of tremors on narratives of sick-
ness and health. 4 In the early nineteenth century, however, this inclusive
conversation was breaking down. earthquakes figured counterintuitively in
new geophysical theories as the effects of elusive electrical forces. 5 Seismol-
ogy seemed ready to become the esoteric subject of expert knowledge.
The history of seismology since 1755 is traditionally seen as a progressive
liberation of natural knowledge from the subjective impressions of earth-
quake victims. After the Staffordshire quake of 1777, for instance, Samuel
Johnson warned that the event would “be much exaggerated in popular