PACIFIC SCIENCE MONTHLY 



eanic regions of South America as well 

 as some in North America. It is the 



belt which beginning near Behring's 

 straits traverses the earthquake re- 

 sjimisof Pekin and Canton, the volca- 

 noes of Sumatra and Java, passes 

 along the volcanoes of Chili and Peru, 

 Central America and close to Rainier, 

 St. Helen's and other volcanoes of 

 North America, thus also again tra- 

 versing California. 



As regards the distribution in time, 

 America has not been long enough 

 discovered to give us sufficient ob- 

 served data to prove a generalization ; 

 but in a paper read before the A. A. A. 

 S. the writer showed from Mallet's Cat- 

 alogue that earthquakes were relative- 

 ly much more numerous in Central 

 Europe about the year 16(53, when the 

 magnetic meridian corresponded with 

 the geographical for that region, than 

 those recorded for more westerly local- 

 ities. Again it was shown that earth- 

 quakes, about the year 1814, when the 

 needle attained its greatest westing for 

 middle Europe, were relatively more 

 abundant in America, as well as re- 

 latively fewer in Europe. 



Judging then from what we know 

 up to this time, it seems probable that 

 earthquakes would be somewhat more 

 numerous about every 333 years from 

 1663 in Europe, (as that seems the per- 

 iod of oscillation for the needle as 

 shown in another paper) and about 

 666 years from 1814 in America, as that 

 is apparently about the period which 

 elapses from the time the magnetic 

 needle occupies its greatest westing, 

 until it oscillates east and returns again 

 to its greatest westing, corresponding, 

 it is thought by some, with great sun- 

 spot periods modifying the earth's 

 meteorology. The chief seismic move- 

 ments in North America it may be 



seen from the above, if correct, may be 

 expected along the line of the Appal- 

 achians, or centrally through the val- 

 ley of the Mississippi, or along the 

 California and Oregon regions, of the 

 Sierra Nevada. &c. 



Mr. Edison's Search. 



Thomas A. Edison says : "The great 

 secret of doing away with the 

 intermediary furnaces, boilers, steam 

 engines and dynamos will be found, 

 probably, within ten years . I have 

 been working away at it for som« 

 months and have got to the point 

 where an apparently insurmountable 

 obstacle confronts me. Working at 

 the problem now seems to me very 

 much like driving a ship straight for 

 the face of precipice and then you 

 come to grief picking yourself up and 

 trying it again to-morrow. There is 

 an opening in the barrier somewhere 

 and some lucky man find it. I have 

 got far enough in my investigations to 

 know that the thing is possble. I can 

 get quite a current now directly from 

 tbe combustion of fuel. Jablochkofl* , 

 tried his hand in the same thing some 

 years ago, and so did some Germans, 

 but the results were laboratory curi- 

 osities only. I give myself five years 

 to work at it and shall think myself 

 lucky if I succeed in that time. 



"The unscientific world has no con- 

 ception of what such a discovery 

 would mean. I would pfct an end to 

 boilers and steam engines ; it would 

 make power about one-tenth as cheap 

 as it is now ; it would enabled a steam- 

 ship to cross the Atlantic at a nominal 

 cost ; it would enable every poor 

 man to run his own carriage ; it would 

 revolutionize the industrial world." 



