Founders of Seismology.—I. John Michell. 107 
Lastly Michell devised two useful methods for determining the 
position of the epicentre. Both were afterwards overlooked and both 
have been reinvented and applied with varying success to the 
investigation of earthquakes. Michell’s “‘ random guess”’ as to the 
depth of the focus, like Newton’s guess with regard to the density 
of the earth, is one of those intuitions that occur only to the 
ablest minds. 
Michell evidently failed to impress his readers, and “he who 
succeeds in doing so”’, says Darwin, “ deserves in my opinion all 
the credit.” But what if the failure be the fault of his readers— 
not of his contemporaries, for it was chiefly to this memoir that 
Michell owed his election to the Royal Society, but of their successors? 
If Michell’s conceptions of the form and trend of strata could sink 
into temporary oblivion, it is not surprising that his almost 
prophetic insight into earthquake phenomena should share their fate. 
But if his influence on future workers were less than his memoir 
deserves he does not, I think, forfeit his claim to be regarded as one 
of the Founders of Seismology. 
