Founders of Seismology.—I. John Michell. 
By Cuarues Davison, Se.D. 
To the earthquake that ruined Lisbon on November 1, 1755, we 
may trace the great interest in the study of earthquakes which 
marks the middle of the eighteenth century, though valuable 
accounts of previous earthquakes had already appeared in the 
pages of the Philosophical Transactions. During the following year 
the Royal Society paid the same close attention to this earthquake 
that it did more than a century later to those of the eruption of 
Krakatoa. In 1757 an anonymous editor published The History 
and Philosophy of Earthquakes, in which he gave abstracts of ten 
memoirs by the“ best writers on the subject ”—Hooke, Woodward, 
Buffon, and Stukeley among them—followed by a summary of the 
observations on the Lisbon earthquake that had been communicated 
to the Royal Society. These are the principal sources on which 
Michell depended when he wrote his memoir on the cause and 
phenomena of earthquakes.1 
The date and place of Michell’s birth are unknown, but the year 
must have been 1724 or 1725, and the place may have been 
Nottingham. Coming, at any rate, from that city, he entered Queens’ 
College, Cambridge, in 1742, and graduated as fourth wrangler in 
the second mathematical tripos (1748-9). This success, which but 
for his wide interests would probably have been greater, was followed 
by his election to a fellowship at Queens’. His wonderful versatility, 
even at so early a stage, is shown by his ability to give college 
lectures on Greek and Hebrew as well as on mathematics. At this 
time, too, he must have been making those original observations on 
the structure of the earth’s crust, which are described in his memoir 
on earthquakes. Two years later he was appointed Woodwardian 
Professor of Geology, being the third holder of that office and the 
most capable until Sedgwick began his long reign in 1818. In 
addition to the college tutorship and lectures—there is no evidence 
that the duties of the professorship were a serious burden—Michell 
held the rectory of St. Botolph’s, Cambridge, from 1760 to 1763. 
The latter year, however, brought a change, the busy official life 
at Cambridge giving place to the studious quiet of a country rectory, 
first at Compton, near Winchester, then at Havant, and lastly, in 
1767, at Thornhill, a Yorkshire village not far from Dewsbury. 
The fellowship at Queens’ and the professorship of geology were both 
vacated in 1764, the year of his first marriage, and no doubt as a 
1 “* Conjectures concerning the Cause and Observations upon the Phenomena 
of Harthquakes; particularly of that great Earthquake of the First of 
November, 1755, which proved so fatal to the City of Lisbon, and whose 
liffects were felt as far as Africa, and more or less throughout all Europe.’” 
(Read February 28, March 6, 13, 20, 27, 1760.) Phil. Trans., vol. li, 1761, 
pp. 566-634. ~ 
