18 
VA DORE 
[May 6, 1886 
Han dynasty 200 B.c., only twelve are recorded ; tradition and 
written archives noting those only that presented extraordinary 
features ; a bald list merely mentioning a disturbance of the 
rivers of the I. and Lo Hanan, 1808 8.c. ; Wei, Chin, and So in 
Shensi, 778 B.c. ; the formation of long chasms in the loess, 
345 and 206 &.c. From the Han period, notices of the pheno- 
mena of course increase, accompanied betimes with a few details 
relating mainly to loss of life, and the succour afforded to 
survivors. Geographically considered, earthquakes in China may 
be grouped as insular, littoral, and inland. 
On the island of Formosa earthquakes are hardly less frequent 
than in Japan, while on Hainan they are comparatively of rare 
occurrence. ‘These islands form a portion of the great volcanic 
chain that girdles the coast of Eastern Asia ; the Chinese portion 
rises from the submarine plateau that overlooks the profound 
abyss of the Pacific Ocean. 
Insular earthquakes affect the mainland but seldom, and to a 
slight extent, which is noteworthy from the proximity of Japan, 
the least stable portion of the earth’s surface, which seemed 
inexplicable until Prof. Milne’s statistics showed that a large 
majority of earthquakes in Japan originated beneath the Pacific. 
The absence from Chinese and Korean annals of notices 
of earthquakes in that peninsula long inclined me to regard 
Korea as comparatively exempt from seismic action, and recently, 
I addressed Consul E. H. Parker, of H.B.M.’s service in that 
country, for information, who obtained from the prefect of 
Chemulpo a communication on the subject, the purport of which 
is, that earthquakes are so infrequent and harmless that records 
are not made of their occurrence. It is more than ten years 
since an earthquake was experienced in that kingdom, and on 
that occasion no one was injured, nor were buildings thrown 
down. No information is obtainable on the subject from Man- 
churia, where presumably earthquakes are uncommon: there is, 
however, a record of a volcanic eruption having occurred about 
a century azo in that portion of the empire.! 
The only existing volcanic action on islands of this coast is on 
the north of Formosa, near Keelung, where three solfataras are 
in ceaseless ebullition, affording large supplies of sulphur, and 
emitting during earthquakes so much hydro-sulphuric gas as to 
occasion a degree of malaise to the residents, and to discolour 
the white paint of ships.? 
Facts respecting Formosan earthquakes are so scanty that the 
following from a Chinese writer is worth citing. It relates to 
an earthquake that occurred in Northern Formosa in the fifth 
month of 1693. ‘‘ During that month the earth shook without 
cessation. A tract of country in which three villages were 
situated caved in; the inhabitants, however, had time to 
, 
escape.” Three years after that submergence, the narrator, a 
mandarin, who was on_ his way to procure sulphur from the 
solfatara ‘‘could see in a lakelet, where the water was shallow, 
tops of bamboos and other trees of those villages. While near the 
solfatara he heard for a day and night noises that resembled a 
cataract precipitated from a lofty cliff; the sound seemed to be 
near and all about, but no evidence of the cause of the noise 
was discoverable. When, however, he arrived at the solfatara 
the mystery was explained, he there heard the same sounds like 
a rushing of subterranean waters.” 
Another active volcano is named in a Chinese account of 
Formosa. It is in Téngshan district in the southern portion of 
the island at Red Hill, near the Tanshin Creek, ona plateau. 
Probably it has not been in open action since Formosa was 
opened to trade, as it does not appear to be known to foreigners. 
Formosan seismic action occasionally causes tremors to be felt 
on the mainland, which is due to the ordinary direction of earth- 
quakes on that island, which are generally from south to north 
or the reverse. The Liuchiuan group is the centre of seismic 
force that does not appear to extend beyond those islands. 
Submarine disturbances not unfrequently attend the insular 
earthquakes ; the sea sometimes rises on the Formosan coast 
sixteen feet above the usual height. Independently of the 
terrene commotions of Formosa, its adjacent waters appear to be 
subject to submarine agitations occasioning what records of the 
* Perhaps the following may be explained as a result of volcanic action 
far distant from Peking. In the month of June, 1465, during a gust of wind 
at the capita! a sound was heard as of hail falling on the ground, when 
pellets the size of cherries were picked up. On breaking them open they 
emitted a sulphurous odour. ‘he writer says he could not have regarded 
such a phenomenon as credible had he not himself witnessed it. 
2 Head-dizziness” is said to be an occasional accompaniment of earth, 
quakes on the mainland. Slight shocks that occurred at_Weichang- 
November 3, 1885, are described in the Sven-fau as exhibiting that 
phenomenon. 
mainland style ‘‘ third” or supplementary tides ; but these are of 
rare occurrence. The ‘‘tide-rips” that have attracted the attention 
of hydrographers are notable phenomena, but the following, from a 
local gazetteer, seems to indicate the existence of phenomena 
that cannot be referred to tidal action :—‘‘ Peculiar noises of the 
sea are sometimes heard which are commonly regarded as indica- 
tive of change of weather, sounds from the north foreboding 
rain, those from the south being followed by wind. Hissing 
noises are heard, at times they are low, at others loud ; when 
low, they resemble the beating of a drum or the dropping of 
beans on that instrument ; now, the sounds are near ; anon, they 
are distant ; stopping suddenly or continuing for hours. When 
the noise is loud, it is more noisy than the voices of a hundred 
thousand men, and the sea bubbles up ; in very protracted cases 
the noises continue day and night for half a month ; and when 
of short continuance the sound lasts three or four days. Coast 
landers err in supposing that these noises have connection with 
the weather. They are absent during rains and in drought, 
in winds and in calms. . . During the sounds, the sea is agitated 
by fearful billows and furious waves.” If that extraordinary 
seething and roaring of the ocean were synchronous with earth- 
quakes, the fact could not have escaped observation : indubitably 
that graphic description applies to submarine volcanic action ; 
to which the submarine plateau of eastern Asiais subject, and to 
which also I attribute the supplementary tides of the adjacent 
coast. Some thirty years ago an island was thrown up bya 
submarine volcano on the south of Formosa ; the pumice which 
is cast on the northern shores of that island is evidently a sub- 
marine production.! é 
As proximity to the belt of volcanic islands seldom disturbs 
the mainland of the northern littoral, so the adjacent coast of 
Southern China and Annam enjoy like exemption from insular 
throes : Chehkiang and Fuhkien are sometimes slightly visited 
by Formosan shocks, and even the Canton coast slightly, but 
Philippine earthquakes never affect Annam. 
Earthquakes on the coast of China are frequent, but slight and 
harmless. Their harmlessness is evinced by the tall slender 
pagodas that adorn the hills and valleys, and they are generally 
very limited in area, with great diversity of direction, but a 
majority being from south-west to north-east. 
The southern provinces of China, and yet more Indo-China, 
appear to be comparatively exempt from earth throes, which, 
however, may be due to lack of information from those regions, 
but there is evidently no seismic zone in tropical or sub-tropical 
eastern Asia such as exists in our mid-latitudes. 
The tremors that are experienced in Chehkiang, Kiangsu, and 
coterminous regions to the west, are sometimes followed by the 
appearance on the ground of substances that in Chinese books 
are styled ‘‘ white hairs.” When I first called attention to 
records of that kind that are found in local gazetteers, I suggested 
that they might be crystals precipitated by gaseous emissions, 
such as were once reported as occurring after an earthquake in 
the south-west of the United States; from later descriptions of 
these ‘‘horsetail-like” substances I incline to the opinion that 
they are organic, perhaps mycillium. 
In the summer of 1878 the vernacular press gave an account 
of the occurrence of the phenomena at Wusoh, a city on the grand 
canal, thirty miles north of Suchau.. ‘‘ At noon, June 12th of 
that year, shocks of an earthquake were experienced, which lasted 
several minutes (Sz. ‘for the space of time taken in swallowing 
half a bowl of rice ’) ; the motion was so great that sitting or stand- 
ing was difficult, but no harm was done. Two days later at night 
there wasaseverershock, after which, within and without the walls 
of the city, white hairs resembling a silvery beard, about three 
inches in length, were found, which boys pulled out of the ground, 
gathering handfulls in a short space of time.” My list of Chinese 
earthquakes for the past two thousand years having been 
destroyed by fire I am unable to indicate the regions in which 
earthquakes were followed by the emission of ‘‘hairs,” but my 
impression is that all, or nearly all, are alluvial valleys. 
The chief foci of inland earthquakes are Yunnan, Szechuan, 
Shensi and Kansuh—and less frequently Shansi, Chihli, Shantung, 
and the central provinces, where they are more violent than in 
other portions of the empire, and frequently present con- 
tinuous or protracted action, for example :— 
A series of earthquakes occurred at Taiyuan, the capital of 
Shansi, in 1882, followed by shocks at brief intervals for a year. 
An earlier series occurred in the province of Chihli; the district 
ee For accounts of the volcanic region of Northern Formosa see Taintor’s 
“Imperial Maritime Customs Report, 1865,” and, Hancock, 1881. 
