THE RECENT ADVANCE IN SEISMOLOGY 405 
which also the annual catalogue of seisms is regularly issued. The 
staff included Professors E. Rudolph, Dr. C. Mainke, and Mr. A. 
Sieberg, all highly trained seismologists. Germany is soon to inaugu- 
rate a system of co-ordinated distant stations, in which will be included 
Samoa, Kiao-chau, German East Africa, and the Bismarck Archi- 
pelago. 
After Great Britain no nation has better opportunities for estab- 
lishing a co-ordinated system of earthquake stations than the United 
States. Coming late into the field, it will not be required to make 
the sacrifices of the pioneer on account of earlier and cruder instru- 
ments, and its isolated outlying territory is admirably distributed for 
the purpose in view. With first-class stations and modern instru- 
ments at Washington, in New England, California, Alaska, Panama, 
Honolulu, Tutuila, Manila, Guam, Cuba, and Porto Rico, much 
might be accomplished to offset the minor réle which the nation has 
thus far played in the great advance of seismology. At the last 
annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, held in New York City in December, 1906, a committee 
of seismology composed of fifteen members was appointed, and at 
a meeting of this committee held in Washington almost upon the 
first anniversary of the great California earthquake, arrangements 
were made by which the United States Weather Bureau will make 
application to the next Congress for an appropriation to be used 
in inaugurating a co-ordinated series of earthquake stations well 
distributed throughout the country. 
The great Indian earthquake of 1897 was the first macroseism upon 
the land to be studied both by co-ordinated distant stations and by 
geologists upon the ground.’ The diagrams of the stations show that 
the waves traveled not only through but around the globe, thus furnish- 
ing a sort of parallel to the atmospheric wave started by the eruption of 
Krakatoa in 1883. | 
The seismograms of some earthquakes show more than one set 
of large waves, and these have been designated W,, W,, and W,. 
The first mentioned appear to have reached the station by the nearest 
«R.D. Oldham, “ Report on the Great Earthquake of 12th June, 1897,” Memoirs 
of the Geological Survey of India, Vol. XXIX (1899), chap. xv. The unfelt earth- 
quake, pp. 227-56. 
