Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
By the early twentieth century, elaborate systems had emerged to gather,
transmit, and archive newspaper clippings, driven by what one historian
describes as a modernist “euphoria” for “completeness.”
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the Caltech Seis-
mological Laboratory, for instance, maintained its subscription to the Allen
Press Clipping Bureau into the 1930s.
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Collectors of clippings “could not
escape the medium” of newspapers, as Anke te heesen points out. try as
they might, collectors never arrived at pure information. “Unintended and
unavoidable juxtapositions generated their own meanings and fantasies,
as a result of the cutting practices, rather than those intended by the collec-
tor.”
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Practices of newspaper reading, reporting, and collecting thus shaped
seismology's epistemic ideal of completeness and its global vision. rock-
wood's volumes of clippings juxtaposed distant seismic events, implicitly
arguing for hidden global connections. At the same time, these collections
literally severed tremors from their local context as indicators of seismic
hazard.
The Earthquake Prophet
HUMAN SEISMOGRAPH FORETELLS DISASTER
—New York Times
headline, 4 May 1909
Seismology's reliance on the press left it vulnerable to public challenges
to its authority. Newspapers offered a platform to self-proclaimed earth-
quake prophets like rudolf Falb, a former Catholic theologian from Styria
who retooled as an astronomer and meteorologist. It was claimed that Falb
had studied natural science in Prague and Vienna, but he held no scientific
degree.
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In fact, his outsider status was part of his persona as a genius un-
recognized by the scientific establishment. In 1868 he founded the popular
astronomical magazine
Sirius,
where he promulgated his theory that earth-
quakes were triggered by lunar and solar tidal pulls on the earth's fluid inte-
rior. (In France, Alexis Perrey advanced a similar theory at this time, but was
not in the business of issuing predictions.) On this basis, Falb claimed to be
able to calculate “critical days,” on which the alignment of earth, moon, and
sun would give rise to massive floods or earthquakes. In 1873, to widespread
acclaim, Falb claimed to have predicted the earthquake that struck Belluno,
Italy, and in 1880 he began publishing calendars of critical days.
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Falb's
theories and predictions were read and debated throughout europe and
North America in newspapers and scientific journals. the
Neue Freie Presse
attested that he had predicted a major subterranean explosion at a mine in
