IGE. dais Wiha rm CF Dagal 
The Study of Distant Harthquakes—Milne’s study of earthquakes 
extended over an interval of about thirty-three years. From 1880 
to 1892, or during the existence of the Seismological Society, he was 
mainly concerned with ordinary earthquakes as they are felt within 
their disturbed areas. The next three years, while he was editing 
the Seismological Journal, formed a period of transition; his 
attention was divided between local and distant earthquakes ; 
he was experimenting with the horizontal pendulum, afterwards 
known as the Milne seismograph. From 1895 until his death in 
1913, or during his second residence in England, his time was chiefly 
devoted to the observation of distant earthquakes, with occasional 
digressions on the distribution of great earthquakes in space and 
time. In the present section I will touch briefly—for his work is 
so recent and well known—on his contributions to the latest and most 
fascinating development of seismology. 
As far back as 1883, Milne had foreseen this development when he 
wrote that “it is not unlikely that every large earthquake might, 
with proper instrumental appliances, be recorded at any point on 
the land-surface of our globe”. But it was not until 1889 that his 
attention was thoroughly aroused. In that year many Japanese 
and other earthquakes were recorded by von Rebeur-Paschwitz’s 
horizontal pendulum at Potsdam, Wilhelmshaven, and elsewhere. 
Four years later Milne was observing distant earthquakes in Tokyo 
with his own seismograph, and his last report (1895) on the earth- 
quake phenomena of Japan contains a list of some of the shocks 
recorded there before his observatory was destroyed. He reached 
Shide on 30th July, 1895, and within three weeks a brick pier was 
built, and the first horizontal pendulum erected in what afterwards 
became the central earthquake-observatory in the world. 
In 1894 von Rebeur-Paschwitz suggested the foundation of an 
international system of earthquake-observatories, but his early 
death within the next twelve months cut short a promising career 
and delayed for several years the fulfilment of his plan. Shortly 
afterwards Milne independently conceived a similar and much 
wider network of stations, and in 1897 the Seismological Committee 
adopted his horizontal pendulum as the standard instrument for 
the purpose. Beginning with his observatory at Shide, the network 
of stations extended year by year, until the number of stations 
contributing records to the committee amounted to thirty-four. 
In the British possessions they were to be found in Canada and 
British Columbia, in Ascension and the Cape of Good Hope, and in 
various districts of India, Australia, and New Zealand. Records 
were also sent to the Committee from several observatories in foreign 
.countries—from Spain, the Azores, and Syria, and from such distant 
island stations as Fernando Noronha and Honolulu. 
The reports of the Seismological Committee, so far as Milne was 
responsible for them, are chiefly concerned with the discussion of 
the registers from these various stations. He touched, however, 
