258 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
PART I. GENERAL 
BARLY EARTHQUAKE THEORY 
Scriptural doctrine.—The Bible lands were among those racked by 
earthquake, and the explanation offered in the Bible was one com- 
mon at the time, namely, that God was displeased with his creatures 
and was visiting punishment upon them. The imagery of the Old 
Testament reflects this feeling. “Thou hast made the earth to 
tremble; Thou hast broken it; heal the breaches thereof for it 
shaketh,” is the description in the sixtieth Psalm. In the one hun- 
dred and fourteenth Psalm we read, “Tremble, thou earth, at the 
presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob; which 
turneth the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of 
waters,” the fountains of water being a characteristic phenomenon 
of all earthquakes: and there follows the inevitable, “O God, 
* * * Thou hast been displeased: O turn Thyself to us again.” 
Aristotelian view.—Vhe Greek philosophers were familiar with 
the earthquakes of the Mediterranean region, and the view of Aris- 
totle, indorsed as it was by the geographer Strabo, has come down 
to us, and with some slight modification it has survived in a quite 
modern theory which, until within a score of years, was regarded as 
standard doctrine. Aristotle conceived earthquakes to be brought 
about by air imprisoned within subterranean cavities, and by its 
struggles to escape this air caused a shaking of the ground. Re- 
gions where there were many caves, such as Achaea, Euboea, and 
Sicily, were, as Aristotle well knew, especially subject to earthquakes. 
The Aristotelian idea was well expressed by Shakespeare, who 
makes Hotspur say to the boastful Glendower: 
O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire, 
And not in fear of your nativity. 
Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth 
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth 
Its with a kind of colic pinched and vexed 
By the imprisoning of unruly wind 
Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving, 
Shakes the old beldam earth, and topples down 
Steeples and moss-grown towers. 
The suggested connection of earthquakes with volcanoes in this 
passage from Henry IV has been common, as is clear from the almost 
hopeless confusion in most of the early writings which deal with 
earthquakes and volcanoes. 
Von Humboldt’s idea of safety valves—Alexander von Humboldt 
made the correct observation that although there were earthquakes 
usually connected with the eruptions of volcanoes, such earthquakes 
were by comparison with the devastating earthquakes of history 
relatively weak and insignificant. He conceived the volcanoes to be. 
