CATALOGUE OF DESTRUCTIVE EARTHQUAKES 051 



hemisphere or the whole world since 1898, will shortly be 

 published as a supplement to this Catalogue. 



In addition to this, I may add that during the last half 

 century, archives previously unknown or inaccessible have 

 become available. The Jish'm Nendaiki, or Earthquake 

 Calendars of Japan and Chinese histories have been translated, 

 whilst almost every civilised country has found one or more 

 specialists to work out its seismic history. 



Foundation of Catalogue. 1 — As a foundation for the present 

 list I first made excerpts from the catalogues of Mallet, PeiTey 

 and Puchs. This was extended from lists culled from catalogues 

 and histories of many foreign countries, a work which involved 

 translation from Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Icelandic and 

 other languages. In this I received great assistance from Mr. E. H. 

 Parker, Professor of Chinese at the University of Manchester, 

 my assistant, Mr. Shinobu Hirota, Mr. W. A. Taylor, Mr. C. A. 

 Gosch, Monsieur E. Scavenius, the Rev. M. S. Maso, S.J., 

 Mr. H. Hope-Jones, Count Montessus de Ballore and other 

 gentlemen to all of whom I now offer my sincere thanks. The 

 back numbers of The Tunes, Nature, and other papers gave a 

 certain amount of information. Lastly, I have had the 

 advantage of a large number of lists and documents relating to 

 earthquakes collected from various parts of the world and put 

 at my disposal by the Foreign, Colonial and India Offices. To 

 all these sources of information I will refer in detail. In sifting 

 this somewhat large quantity of material, it might be suggested 

 that the process of elimination may occasionally have been too 

 strict. For example, small earthquakes may have been rejected 

 which were really the surface record of shocks which were 

 megaseismic at their origin. Inasmuch as the rejections are 

 confined to what are clearly aftershocks, and to disturbances 

 which were only felt at one or two places and that experience 

 has shown that vibrations which can be felt have not travelled 

 very far, I do not think the errors due to omission are 

 numerous. Not only have certain small earthquakes been 

 omitted, but whenever the information on which the accounts of 

 large ones has been based have been of a doubtfxil character, 

 these also have been rejected. For example, Mallet refers to 

 disturbances which Barrata, the Italian seismologist, either 

 omits or considers to be founded upon information which is 

 unreliable. Mr. W. A. Taylor points out that the earthquakes 

 of H43 and 846 in Naples, 950 in Syracuse, 981-995 in Sicily, 

 1007 or 1008 in Apulia, and 1245 in Nardo, are disturbances of a 

 doubtful character, and are spoken of as mendacious. I have 

 also omitted earthquakes which are said to have accompanied 

 the birth and death of sacred personages and martyrs. At the 

 birth and death of Christ, at the martyrdom of St. Agatha, at 

 Calabria in A.D. 255, the day of burial of St. Agnes, A.D. 304 

 and at the decapitation of Sts. Valantino and Ilaria in A.D. 306 

 we are told great earthquakes are said to have taken place. 



