1909] OUTLOOK OF SEISMIC GEOLOGY. 295 



field lagged far behind other nations. In Japan since 1892 there 

 has been an Earthquake Investigation Committee, and whenever a 

 destructive earthquake is reported from any part of the world, Pro- 

 fessor Omori, the secretary of the committee and its chief expert, is 

 despatched by his government to prepare a report upon it. Under 

 orders from the Japanese government, he is today in the vicinity of 

 Messina engaged in a study of the latest great disaster. While 

 these expeditions have been of value in securing information, the 

 time has come when with the incease of our knowledge of earth- 

 quakes, something more than a reconnaissance survey is required. 

 One man without assistants and without elaborate equipment, is 

 today in no position to secure those more important data which alone 

 can advance our knowledge of earthquakes beyond its present status. 

 Today a scientific party should have at its disposal one or more 

 surveying vessels — small gunboats or protected cruisers could be 

 easily adapted for the purpose — provided with modern sounding 

 apparatus and with a full equipment of necessary instruments. The 

 crops of scientific workers should include skillful topographers and 

 their assistants and all suitable instruments for preparing accurate 

 topographic maps. The party should also include trained experts 

 whose duty it should be, among other things, to map the distribution 

 of the surface intensity of the shocks. An expeditionary vessel of 

 the type described could be utilized upon occasion to study volcanic 

 as well as seismic disturbances ; such, for example, as the late erup- 

 tions in the Windward Islands. The seismic events of the years 

 1906-8, would have been more than sufficient to take up the atten- 

 tion of two surveying vessels with their corps of scientific workers.*^ 

 In times of relative seismic inactivity the ships and their comple- 

 ments could be employed to advantage in work which will be more 

 definitely indicated below. 



A Service of Correlated Earthquake Observatories. — In addition 

 to the study upon the ground, which may be expected to lay bare 

 some important laws of seismic geology, there should be installed a 



series of stations equipped with modern seismographs for the regis- 



/ 

 *' In a late number of the Popular Science Monthly (February, 1909) the 

 writer has pointed out the exceptional opportunities which the recent 

 Messina disaster has offered for study by this method. 



