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(Camassi 2004), in the case of Switzerland more than sixty catalogues are listed
in the Macroseismic Earthquake Catalogue of Switzerland (MECOS 1999).
2.1 Alexis Perrey and Predecessors
Well before Alexis Perrey began his masterful catalogues in the 1840s, many earth-
quakes catalogues were already available. It is generally conceded that scientific
seismology begins with the 1755 Lisbon earthquake (e.g. Quenet 2005). So the first
modern catalogue is considered to have been compiled in 1756 by the German
writer Johan Friederich Seyfart (1727-1786) (Seyfart 1756). His catalogue de-
scribed earthquakes worldwide, from an uncertain date
1
in ancient times up to 1756.
It included a useful geographical index and mentions of a few sources. Shortly
later, Count Philibert Gueneau de Montbeillard (1720-1785), a French naturalist
and a friend of Buffon, published another catalogue of global earthquakes, and in-
cluded volcanic eruptions along with other meteorological phenomena (Gueneau
1761). His catalogue included descriptions of effects for the earthquakes listed, but
without citing the sources of data. This compilation served as a starting point for
many of his followers. Soon after, Father Louis Cotte (1740-1815), considered as
the founder of meteorology, prepared annual catalogues for the years 1764-1809
(Cotte 1776, 1807, 1809, 1810). These catalogues were simple lists of earthquakes
and other meteorological phenomena, providing almost no other information than
the dates of events. His work was continued by Fran¸ois Arago (1786-1853),
the French astronomer, who published annual catalogues between 1818 and 1830
(Arago 1818-1830). Each catalogue began with a supplement for the previous year.
At about the same time the German geologist Karl Ernst Adolf von Hoff
(1771-1837) was working in Gotha on his memoir on “Natural changes of the earth
surface” (Hoff 1822, 1824, 1834). For this work, he compiled a global earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions catalogue spanning from 3460 BC to 1832 AD, published
posthumously (Hoff 1840, 1841). He also compiled annual catalogues, for the years
1821-1830 (Hoff 1826-1834), but these annual catalogues were reprinted in (Hoff
1841) with some additions. Von Hoff introduced a major improvement to seismic
catalogues not only including accurate descriptions of earthquake effects, but also
providing detailed references to sources. Another German geologist, Christian Ke-
ferstein (1784-1866), also compiled a global catalogue, for the years 17 AD to 1825
AD (Keferstein 1827), but generally with far less details than von Hoff's one and
without references.
Alexis Perrey (1807-1882) had pursued his career as professor of mathematics
and astronomy in Dijon since 1837 (Rothe and Godron 1924). It is not known how
he became interested in earthquakes. His first mention of his work on historical
1
)
, ist ohne Zweifel dasjenige, das Gott am dritten Sch opfungs-Tage
durch die Gewalt des Feuers in dem Erd-Bal erregete
” [The first earthquake (
“
Das erste Erdbeben,
(
...
) is undoubtedly
the one triggered by God on the third day of the creation, through the power of the fire inside the
globe]
...
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