56 Original Articles. [ Jan. 
days of Aristotle, a branch of Meteorology ; at the same time we happen 
to know that that Journal declined to give publicity to a carefully drawn 
up series of inquiries prepared for it by a competent person. 
The fact is that Seismology—which has only become a science 
since 1846, and has since advanced with very rapid strides—has as yet 
not become diffused at all widely, even amongst the proper brotherhood 
of Science, and no attempt has been made to popularize it for the less 
informed reader. It occupies just now about the same relative position 
that Ice Theories did in 1837, when at the Liverpool Meeting of the 
British Association, the very first Paper that appeared in English on 
the Motion of Glaciers was read (on sufferance) in the Geological sec- 
tion ; the President observing that, “as the topmost and most recent 
of all deposits, Ice might certainly be conceived as having something 
to do with Geology ;” but no one then saw any importance, or great 
Cosmical relations, in the subject that since has engaged so many 
minds, and been shown to play so important a part in the terrestrial 
machine, and which, having passed into popular hands, is now being 
“run away with” by some Geologists, who attribute to its past or 
present agency many gigantic tasks that, tested by only a little exact 
science, would prove to be impossible. No doubt something of a like 
fate is in store for Seismology. 'Those—the few—who will master 
the preliminary science absolutely necessary to understand and make 
use of it, will find in it the key to some of the greatest, and hitherto 
amongst the most obscure, problems of Physical Geology. Those who 
will be content with scraps of knowledge, or with being told results, like 
children, will be amused ; and, in proportion as they know more, will they 
be better amused, with Harthquake stories. But though they will then 
to some extent comprehend, they can never make for themselves real 
advances into the unknown. On the contrary (as with many Glacialists 
in relation to Geology), they may oftener, if they make the attempt, 
“ darken counsel by words without knowledge ;”’ for the half knowledge 
of ingenious men is always “the Philosophy of the unconditioned.” 
But although this is peculiarly the popular career of such parts of 
science as seize upon the imagination by the grandeur of the phenomena 
they discuss, and admit of a smattering of their reasonings being attained 
without great mental effort,—still it is well, here as everywhere, that 
those who actually scaled the rugged precipice of science, when they 
have reached a firm foothold upon a new or higher ledge, should turn 
round and announce to those that labour in the plain, the wider and 
nobler horizon of nature they have commanded. 
It is good, therefore, that Science (worthily so called) should, as 
far as possible, utter her voice intelligibly to all. Let us humbly try 
to do this in part for the new-born Science of Seismology ; but we 
must begin at the beginning, albeit we may not in this paper reach 
the end. And first, let us understand what we are speaking about. 
What isan Earthquake? Our readers are confident that they can answer 
that inquiry. There are some who have read, many who have talked 
of them, and some even who have felt their effects. But what are 
these effects? and the cause—what is it? Let us mention one or two 
things which an Earthquake is not. It is never “ one of the means by 
