Reviews 



La science seismologique: les tremhlements de terre. By F. de Mon- 

 TESSUS DE Ballore, With an Introduction by Eduard Suess. 

 Paris: Armand Colin, 1907. Pp. 579, 222 figures, maps, and 

 plates. 

 In the month of January, 1906, there came from the press of Armand 

 Colin in Paris an illustrated monograph of some five hundred pages written 

 by the Count de Montessus de Ballore and bearing the title, Les tremhle- 

 ments de terre: geographie seismologique. This important work grew out 

 of almost a lifetime of labor and has laid the foundations for a branch 

 of seismological science well described in the subtitle of the work. Seismic 

 Geography. The present volume, which is uniform in style with and 

 somewhat larger than its forerunner, was issued in December, 1907, or 

 less than two years subsequent to the appearance of the Seismic Geography. 

 The earlier volume discussed the distribution upon the earth's surface 

 of all recorded earthquake shocks, of which no less than 170,000 were 

 brought under consideration. Not only were these shocks graded and 

 compared by earthquake provinces, but within each province the distri- 

 bution of seisraicity was studied by a newly derived method, and maps 

 were prepared on which all places which had been visited by important 

 shocks were placed in relation with one another. Further, the geological 

 structure of each district was inquired into and the relation of the so-called 

 epicenters to lines of fracture and faulting was pointed out. 



The new volume is a treatise upon seismology in all its aspects, and is 

 at once the most comprehensive and the most authoritative work upon 

 the subject which has yet appeared. Dr. de Montessus is an omniverous 

 and very careful reader of the literature of the science, and in addition to 

 the three principal languages of the scientific world, he has brought to 

 his aid a reading knowledge of a number of others, notably Italian, Spanish, 

 and Russian. It is to this fact as well as to the long period during which 

 he has been collecting the data that the comprehensiveness and the broad 

 perspective of the work are to be ascribed. If the data of seismology 

 have been long in the assembling, the advance of the science is all com- 

 prised within a notably brief and recent period. The present is, in conse- 

 quence, a time of transition as regards both the methods of study and the 



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