REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, 



Etc. 



Seismological Investigations. — Thirty-first Report of Committee 

 (Prof. H. H. Turner, Chairman ; Mr. J. J. Shaw, Secretary ; Mr. 

 C. Vernon Boys, Dr. J. E. Crombie, Dr. C. Davison, Sir F. W. 

 Dyson, Sir R. T. Glazebrook, Dr. Harold Jeffreys, Prof. H. 

 Lamb, Sir J. Larmor, Prof. A. E. H. Love, Prof. H. M. Macdonald, 

 Dr. A. Crichton Mitchell, Mr. R. D. Oldham, Prof. H. C. Plummer, 

 Rev. J. P. Rowland, S.J., Prof. R. A. Sampson, Sir A. Schuster, Sir 

 Napier Shaw, Sir G. T. Walker, and Mr. F. J. W. Whipple.) 

 [Drawn up by the Chairman except where otherwise mentioned.} 



General. 



The Milne bequest of £1000 mentioned in the last Report, together with the previous 

 bequest from the late Matthew H. Gray, of Lessness Park, Abbey Wood, has been 

 placed in the hands of the Official Trustee of Charitable Funds, as a British Association 

 Seismological Trust. The income from the Trust will be paid over to the Westminster 

 Bank (Oxford branch), and will be at the disposal of the Chairman for the time being 

 of the British Association Seismology Committee. The arrangements have involved 

 some correspondence and consequent delay, but are on the point of completion. 



A memorial stone to John Milne and his wife was, in November 1926, set up at 

 Hakodate, in the graveyard of the Horrkawa family, by subscriptions from ninety- 

 seven of Milne's former pupils at Tokyo. Initiative in this matter was taken by 

 Prof. Imamui a of Tokyo. 



The University of Oxford has now sanctioned the extension of the University 

 Observatory by four rooms to the east of the present buildings, together with a 

 basement below them for the reception of the two Milne-Shaw pendulums, which are 

 at present, by the courtesy of Prof. Lindemann, mounted in the basement of the 

 Clarendon Laboratory. Excavation for the basement has already been made, and 

 it is hoped that the work will now go forward without further delay. (See Report 

 for 1925.) 



The salary of Mr. J. S. Hughes has been provided, half by Dr. Crombie and (after 

 six months' interval, during which it fell on the funds of the University Observatory) 

 half by the Royal Society. Under his supervision the current reductions have gone 

 steadily ahead. (See below under Bulletins and Tables.) 



The telegrams from Fordbam University have ceased to come, probably in con- 

 sequence of the formation of the Jesuit Seismological Association in the United 

 States ; but on one or two important occasions very helpful telegrams have been 

 received from Helwan, fiom Hyderabad, and from Perth (W. Australia). A con- 

 spicuous instance was the great shock of 1927, May 22d, -22h, in Kansu, Western 

 China, which must be put alongside the shocks of 1920, December 16, in the same 

 neighbourhood, and those in Japan in 1923, September 1 and 2, as the four greatest 

 shocks of recent years. Telegrams from Helwan, Hyderabad, and Perth enabled us 

 to fix the epicentre at 35-8° N., 103-4° E., some 2-3° to the west of that of 1920, 

 December 16, and this position was communicated to The Times of May 25, with the 

 information that the intensity exceeded that of its predecessor. But conditions in 

 China are so much disturbed that it was not until June 21 that news was received 

 direct from the neighbourhood of this ' terrific earthquake.' A month later, under 

 date July 29, Mgr. Buddenbrook, Vicar-Apostolic in Kansu, reported that the ' city 

 of Kulang has absolutely disappeared. He estimates that the range of the earth- 

 quake was seventy miles, and that 100,000 people were killed.' He himself was at 

 the time celebrating Mass at Lanchow (the capital of Kansu) and was hurled from 

 the sanctuary into the open. {The Times of July 30.) 



Dr. C. Davison has added to our obligations to him by publishing a new work on 

 the Founders of Seismology (Camb. Univ. Press, 1927, 12s. 6d. net), in which special 

 appreciation is accorded to the work of three Englishmen, Michell, Mallet and Milne. 



At the end of the Oxford Meeting of the British Association, our Secretary, 

 Mr. J. J. Shaw, was attacked by serious illness, and was ultimately ordered abroad. 



