86 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.—1913, 
has become a new science, largely owing to his own initiative. During 
twenty years’ residence in Japan he became acquainted with earthquakes 
as disasters, and devoted himself to the study of them at close quarters, 
with a view to preventing loss of life. On his return to England he 
looked for a place where these studies at close quarters might be con- 
tinued on minor disturbances, and Shide was selected after consultation 
with Professor J. W. Judd, F.R.S., then Chairman of this Committee. 
But almost simultaneously the possibility of detecting large earthquakes 
at a distance was realised; at once Milne seized the new opportunity ; 
he devised a simple instrument for collecting such distant records, and 
stimulated the establishment of stations equipped with this instrument 
scattered over the globe, especially in British territory. Their records 
were sent to him at Shide, and he gave them information in return 
which maintained their interest and enthusiasm. The results are 
embodied in the annual reports of this Committee, in which the growth 
of a new department of knowledge can be traced. Facts about the 
structure of our globe are now familiar which were not only unsuspected 
in themselves when Milne began work, but to which it was not sus- 
pected that we had the means of access. Milne was cordially recog- 
nised, at the last meeting of the International Seismological Associa- 
tion, as the pioneer in their discovery. 
Such a man cannot be replaced. At a meeting of the Committee 
held on September 10, 1918, it was determined that the work he had 
organised should for the present be carried forward as nearly as possible 
on the same lines as before. Mr. J. H. Burgess, who has for some 
years past been assisting Professor Milne at Shide (especially since 
the departure of Shinobu Hirota for Japan last year), will carry on 
the routine, under the general direction of the Chairman of the Com- 
mittee. Professor Perry has accepted nomination as Secretary of the 
Committee, as a purely temporary expedient, which will allow of full 
consideration of a successor. It will not be easy to raise funds for 
the proper continuation of the work, even on the present lines, since 
Professor Milne himself subsidised the work to an unknown amount; 
but this provision of funds is under consideration. 
The following resolution was passed by the General Committee of 
the British Association on September 17 :— 
‘That this Committee desires to put on record its deep sympathy 
with Mrs. Milne, and its profound sense of the loss which 
seismology, and especially British seismology, has sustained 
in the death of John Milne. As Secretary of the Committee 
from 1895 to his death, he secured the establishment of half a 
hundred observing stations scattered over the face of the earth; 
he organised a co-operative scheme of work among them and 
incorporated the results of it in a series of Reports of this Com- 
mittee which have revolutionised the science, if indeed they 
may not rather be said to have created it.’ 
