136 



NA TURE 



[June 8, 1893 



The French weekly geographical paper, La Ghgraphie, has, 

 after five years in the ordinary garb of a newspaper, assumed a 

 new form, each number consisting of eight quarto pages in a 

 coloured wrapper. 



Mr. H. Yule Oldham, Lecturer on Geography in Owens 

 College, Manchester, has been appointed to the lectureship on 

 Geography in the University of Cambridge, formerly held by 

 Mr. J. Y. Huchanan, F.R.S. Mr. Oldham has mainly studied 

 the historical aspects of geography, and in his appointment the 

 University of Cambridge obviously intends to associate its 

 geographical teaching with the Historical rather than the 

 Natural Science Board of Studies. It is to be hoped that the 

 lectureship will receive more attention from the members of the 

 University than has been given to it hitherto, and that the loss 

 to scientific geography caused by Mr. Buchanan's retirement 

 will be more than made up by increased interest in the less 

 specialised aspects of the science. 



Mr. H. M. Cadell gives a remarkably interesting map of 

 the site of Kdinburgh in prehistoric times m the June number 

 of the Scottish Geographical Magazine. The most noteworthy 

 feature is the submergence of the 25 leet raised beach on which 

 the greater part of Leith is now Duilt, and the existence of 

 seven comparatively large lakes of which the shrunken remnants 

 only remain, or which have been entirely drained and reclaimed 

 within the historic period. A summary of the evidence for the 

 existence of these lakes is given in the form of a short article. 

 It is noteworthy that the changes in the surface ol the 

 land due to cultivation and building operations have in some 

 cases almost entirely concealed the original features. In the 

 early human period the shores of the Firth of Forth must have 

 been occupied by a succession of swampy lakes dominated by 

 the steep cliffs of the volcanic hills. 



SEISMOLOGY IN JAPAN} 



'T'HE editor insists in a Wordsworlhian manner on calling; this 

 the seventeenth volume although it is really vol. i. ot the 

 journal : he numbers it as a continuation of publications 

 hitherto issued as the Transactions of the Seismological Society 

 of Japan. The Society was founded in 1880 and for many 

 years its meetings were frequent and well attended. It ceased 

 to live in so far as subscriptions and meetings are concerned in 

 1892, many of its members having left the country. It may 

 now be said to exist as much as ever it did, but without sub- 

 scriptions. The transactions are in sixteen volumes of scientific 

 papers to which a general index is published in this first 

 number of the journal, and there can be no doubt of the great 

 value of these papers, or of the ability and industry in ex- 

 periment and speculation of the men who wrote them. During 

 the twelve years' work of the Society much was accomplished ; 

 some order was evolved out of chaos ; seismographs have 

 been invented giving absolute measurements of earth motions, 

 and a complete change has been effected in earthquake observa- 

 tion ; a chair of seismology has been established in the Im- 

 perial University and there is now a bureau controlling a 

 central observatory and some 700 outside stations, together 

 with many seismological laboratories. This is some of the 

 work which the Society has done. 



The first paper in this journal " On the Mitigation of Earth- 

 quake Etiects, and Certain Experiments on Earth Physics " by the 

 editor, reads very strangely to anyone unacquainted with the 

 work done by Prof. Milne in the last fifteen years. For ex- 

 ample, on the construction of buildings in earthquake countries, 

 his experiments have led to such results that he can speak with 

 certainty on things which used to be merely matters of vague 

 speculation, such as the security given by depth of foundation 

 and the great differences in the earth motions at places within 

 a few hundred yards of one another. 



Probably no one can speak with greater authority on photo- 

 graphic matters than Prof. Burton, who contributes an article 

 "On the Application of Photography to Seismology and 

 Volcanic Phenomena." The other papers are : — An abstract of 

 "The Seismometrical Observations for the year 1890," by the 

 editor ; "An Account of Experiments on the Overturning and 

 Fracturing of Brick and other Columns by Horizontally Applied 

 Motion," by the editor and Prof. Omori ; " On Earth Pulsations 

 in relation to certain Natural Phenomena and Physical Investi- 



1 The Seismological Journal of Jafan, edited by John Milne, F.R.S. 

 Vol. xvii. 1893. 



NO. 1232, VOL. 48] 



gations," by the editor ; an abstract on observations by Dr. E. 

 Von Rebeur-Paschwuz with horizontal pendulums ; a note on 

 old Chinese earthquakes, by Prof. Omori, and a note by the 

 editor on the destructive earthquake of 1891. All these papers 

 seem to roe to be valuable and interesting ; they ought to be 

 studied by every young philosopher whose mathematical and 

 other weapons are ready, but who is yet without mental employ- 

 ment. The subject is one of world-wide interest, although it 

 may seem to be only interesting to people like the Japanese 

 who are jogged into attention every week of their lives. 



The beautiful series of photographs published by Burton and 

 Milne about a year ago are records that can never be branded 

 as lies or exaggerations. Even Dr. Johnson, who to his dying 

 day denied the fact that an earthquake had occurred at Lisbon, 

 would have been convinced by records such as these. Without 

 these photographs it would be difficult to believe in the actual 

 compression in area of land over a large district or in 

 vertical wave motion, travelling along a street as if the earth 

 were water in a canal. The Japanese cannot neglect the study 

 of the subject and other people ought not. Our time also may 

 come, even in England, when in a five seconds interval, three 

 fourths of all the houses in London may tumble into ruin and 

 a quarter of a million sterling may be lost on every square mile 

 of English ground. It is of no use to argue from the long 

 histories of ancient cities. Earth shakes that had no evil effect 

 on the more or less pyramidal architecture of Assyria and 

 Egypt would lay the dwelling houses ot London in ong 

 swathes upon the ground. One laughs at Alice's White Knight 

 who was so well prepared for sharks, but we also laugh at Mrs. 

 Aleslime whose specific in the real time of danger was "black 

 stockings for sharks." Whatever our own safety may be we 

 must remember that some of the most interesting parts of the 

 world are vitally interested in this question, and the most 

 artistic, most honest, most kindly, most generous and confiding 

 clever people that the world has ever seen are demanding from 

 us that we shall study this question to find out whatever means 

 there may be for mitigating the effects of earthquakes, and 

 more than all, taking away from them the dreadful everpreseni 

 feeling of danger, which seems in itself almost sufticient to 

 arrest progress in civilisation. 



We western people were tilllately represented in Japan on this 

 question by the Seismological Society. What one earnest worker 

 and a few of his friends can do is being done, but in spite of 

 earnestness and devotion, I am afraid that in one respect there 

 must be a lessened result. The existence of the Society was of 

 some weight in maintaining the interest of the Japanese Govern- 

 ment on what must seem to non-scientific people a raiher 

 hopeless search for information. Even the small and exceed- 

 ingly intermittent assistance of the British Association grant is 

 of enormous moral value to Prof Milne ; and I think that if 

 the council at Edinburgh had yielded to the representations of 

 section A and granted the modest request of Prof. Milne for 

 £2^, they would have done more good than they can do with 

 any equal sum in their present list. We have here a man who 

 is untiring in experimental work, who has the power of keeping 

 enthusiasm alive in other people to a remarkable degree, who 

 is not a wealthy man and who yet spends some hundreds of 

 pounds a year of his own, in making and using apparatus and 

 in publishing a journal which has about seventeen subscribers. 

 And all the work is good ; it is thankless work as all work on 

 the beginning of a science must be. 



If every reader of Nature who is interested in the matter 

 and who can afford it, would only send to Prof. Milne a sub- 

 scription (one pound a year) to this journal, his losses would 

 be confined to his experimental work ; the Japanese Government 

 would more certainly continue to interest its officials in making 

 observations, and the subscribers would glow in the consciousness 

 of having done their duty. John Perry. 



ON LIGHT AND OTHER HIGH FREQUENCY 

 PHENOMENA} 



"DRILLIANTLY worded, comprehensive, and strikingly 

 illustrated was a lecture delivered by Mr. Nikola Tesla, 

 of which a report has just reached us. In his own words : — 



1 A lecture delivered before the Franklin Institute, at Philadelphia, Febw 

 24, 1893, ^"tl before the National EJeciric Light Association, at .St. Louis, 

 Mo., March i, 1893. 



