CLIMATE AND EARTHQUAKES 205 



[Climate and Earthquakes] 



As to the weather prevailing on Bering Island, it is not much 

 different from that on Kamchatka. However, the storm winds 

 are much more violent and perceptible because the island lies at 

 sea without any protection and is at the same time very narrow 

 and unforested. Moreover, when the wind blows through the 

 depressions and narrow valleys, its violence is increased to such 

 an extent that one can barely stay on one's feet, and it is accom- 

 panied by a terrible whistling and roaring the frightfulness of 

 which is enhanced by the violence of the sea breaking on the 

 rocks on shore and filling the air with its thunder. The most 

 violent storm winds occurred in February and April from the 

 southeast and the northwest. With an east wind we had mild 

 and clear, with a north wind cold and clear weather. The highest 

 stage of the sea occurred on the first of February with northwest 

 winds. The other occurrence of a flood was caused by melting 

 snow and heavy rain in the middle of May. 



Earthquakes occurred three times; of these that which occurred 

 on February 7 at one o'clock in the afternoon with a west wind 

 was the most violent and lasted for six whole minutes. I was 

 at the time in our underground hut and, as did others, heard 

 several minutes before this a sound and a strong subterranean 

 wind^^ which seemed to proceed with violent hissing and roaring 

 from south to north and which became stronger the nearer it 

 approached us. After the roaring had stopped the tremor 

 began ; it was so violent and perceptible that the posts in our hut 

 moved and everything began to crack. I immediately ran out 

 of the hut to the sea to see what took place in nature. Although 



6' In this reference to a subterranean wind in connection with earth- 

 quakes and, to a lesser degree, in the preceding and subsequent references 

 to the direction of the surface wind, there is more than an echo of the 

 seismological views of antiquity (see Montessus de Ballore: La science 

 seismologique, Paris, 1907, pp. 16-17; J- K, Wright: The Geographical 

 Lore of the Time of the Crusades, Amer. Geogr. Soc. Research Series No. 

 15, New York, 1925, p. 32). (J). The sound which I heard accompany 

 an earthquake at Nikolski, Bering Island, in 1922 was like that of a 

 heavy truck moving quickly over a very rough stone pavement. (S) 



