Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Scottish bar.
11
Still, Milne's geological research had won him membership
in the Geological Society of London and the esteem of the major British
geologists of his generation, as his exchanges with the likes of Lyell and
Darwin attest. And his wealth gave him the freedom to indulge his curiosity
about Scottish earthquakes to his heart's content.
Milne was delighted at news of the 1839 shock. It was, he insisted, a
“matter of regret and reproach” that British men of science had not inves-
tigated “volcanic action” on their home turf in the past. they were wrong
to be deterred by the absence of volcanoes: “It is in foreign countries, that
the British geologist has hitherto been in the practice of searching for and
observing the indicia of volcanic action;—for it seems to have been thought
that the phenomena were unsatisfactory or unworthy of attention, unless
accompanied with eruption. But if, as is now generally admitted, active vol-
canoes serve the purpose of safety-valves, to give ready vent to the subter-
ranean forces, the effect of these forces on the earth's surface ought to be
greater where no volcanoes exist.”
12
British colleagues concurred that the
earthquake was a stroke of good fortune. Upon learning of Milne's growing
collection of observations of Scottish earthquakes, Charles Darwin declared
himself “astonished at their frequency in that quiet country, as anyone
would have called it.” the geologist Charles Daubeny was pleased to hear
that “jets of smoke or steam” had been observed in connection with certain
of these events: “I consider it a fortunate circumstance that a case of the kind
should have occurred so near home; for the localities in which the evolution
of flame from the earth is stated to occur”—such as the mountains of Alba-
nia and the Caspian Sea—“are for the most part inconveniently situated for
exact experiments.”
13
Milne, the geologist-attorney, once described his investigative method
to Darwin as “precognition”—the Scottish legal term for the collection of
witness testimony in advance of a trial.
14
But there is little evidence of his
activity in this respect. His lasting achievement was to publish for poster-
ity the results obtained by Macfarlane and Drummond. these he saw fit
to edit considerably, since “it has not been thought necessary to include
a description of
all
the effects related of such shocks.” Common observa-
tions such as damage to chimneys would merely “swell the register.” “the
object has been, rather to select and exhibit effects which seem calculated to
throw light on the nature and causes of earthquake-shocks.”
15
In this way,
details crucial to the determination of intensity—and thus the mapping of
hazard—were discarded, in favor of evidence that was clearly relevant to
available theories. Yet the phenomena Milne chose to preserve may sur-
prise modern readers: sounds (of two types, an explosion and a rushing or
