May 4, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



421 



barrassment of riches well worthy of the 

 best efforts of our best men. I therefore 

 pass over most of these subjects and come 

 to geology, with the problems of which I 

 am more familiar. And if I speak of them 

 more at length, it is because of that famil- 

 iarity, and not because I regard them as 

 of more importance than those of other 

 branches of science. But even in speaking 

 of geology, whose local problems are re- 

 markably numerous and important, I am 

 obliged to confine myself to a single topic. 



"We have in geology an excellent illustra- 

 tion of the importance and of the splendid 

 results to be expected in attacking some of 

 the problems under our hands. The fossil 

 vertebrates found in the asphaltum deposits 

 near Los Angeles have been promptly and 

 thoroughly looked after by our colleague 

 Dr. Merriam, of the University of Cali- 

 fornia, with results that have not been 

 surpassed by any work of the kind done in 

 any other quarter of the globe. How fortu- 

 nate for us and for science that Dr. J. C. 

 Merriam did not think a local problem un- 

 worthy of his attention. 



Earthquakes. — But I regret to say that 

 we also have here a geological problem of 

 another kind. I hesitate even to mention 

 it, perhaps because an old Spanish proverb 

 says that "in the house of a hangman one 

 should never mention rope. ' ' And in Cali- 

 fornia one has to take his courage in both 

 hands when he says "earthquake." 



Here is a problem, or rather a great 

 group of problems, that nature has left on 

 our very doorsteps. What are we doing 

 with it, and what do we propose to do? 



The earthquake of 1906 jolted us into a 

 state of temporary wakefulness, but we 

 seem calmly to have gone asleep again. 

 The only thing to our credit in connection 

 with it is the excellent report of Dr. A. C. 

 Lawson, which stands out, and stands alone, 

 as a contribution to seismology in this 



country. Very largely through the impetus 

 given to the study of seismology by the 

 earthquake of 1906, the Seismological Soci- 

 ety of America was formed here in Cali- 

 fornia in the hope that we might get the 

 cordial support of scientific men and of 

 public-spirited people generally in the 

 study of earthquakes. 



Through the patient exertions and per- 

 sonal sacrifices of a handful of men and 

 through the generous contribution of our 

 colleague Mr. Robert "W. Sayles, of Har- 

 vard University, we have been able to pub- 

 lish six volumes of the society's quarterly 

 bulletin and to get started on a road that 

 seems to lead somewhere. 



I am merely stating a fact in connection 

 with this subject when I say that instead of 

 taking hold of the problems of the earth- 

 quakes, most of us seem disposed to run 

 from them ; or what is still worse, we deny 

 their very existence, while the cooperation 

 and help we hoped to receive from the pub- 

 lic has not been forthcoming. Certain 

 branches of business are especially liable to 

 damage from earthquakes, and it seems 

 quite reasonable that such industries should 

 cooperate with us by gathering and sending 

 in data regarding earthquakes as they oc- 

 cur. Our railway lines, with their many 

 bridges, cuts and fills, are liable to be seri- 

 ously damaged and their service inter- 

 rupted, to say nothing of the possible 

 danger to human life through trains run- 

 ning into dislocations; our telegraph and 

 telephone lines are liable to be broken and 

 their service interrupted; our electric 

 power companies are liable to have their 

 dams injured, their pipe lines and wires 

 broken, and their service seriously inter- 

 fered with; our water companies are liable 

 to have their dams injured or destroyed, 

 their water mains broken and their service 

 impaired ; while our insurance companies 

 are perplexed by rate problems in a region 



