GENERALIZATIONS CONCERNING EARTHQUAKES 43 



WHY THE PREDICTIONS WERE UNWARRANTED 

 A just criticism of Dr. Willis's predictions can be 

 made to the effect that their language conveys the 

 impression that Southern California is a region of 

 maximum seismicity where major shocks like those 

 which have occurred in Eastern Asia and elsewhere 

 may take place. None of them states the fear-relieving 

 fact, as I now emphatically do, that no such intense de- 

 grees of seismicity are known to have occurred or are 

 expected to occur here on the eastern side of the Pacific 

 Basin, as are now known on its western, or Asiatic 

 side. Earthquakes of as great severity and destructive 

 capacity as ever known in California have taken place 

 in the mid-continent and Atlantic sea-board regions — 

 Boston, Charleston and New Madrid. Therefore, it is 

 obviously wrong to inculcate impressions upon the 

 minds of the people at home or abroad that we are 

 in any unusual earthquake danger. When interrogated 

 upon this subject one of the leading earthquake auth- 

 orities admitted the truth of this statement, that the 

 property loss was the chief concern, and that proper 

 construction would avoid even this loss. 



COLLAPSE OF THE PREDICTION OF ALTER- 

 NATE OCCURRENCES 



One of the weakest of the erroneous postulates is 

 that inasmuch as the last, large, relieving seismism 

 along the San Andreas rift had taken place in North- 

 ern California in 1906 that the next one must, neces- 

 sarily occur in Southern California. 



This prediction was made upon the further theory 

 that since the last, relieving shock in Southern Cali- 

 fornia was in 1857, and a later release was in North- 



