400 L. MARTIN — ^ALASKAN EARTHQUAKES OF 1899 



In 1883 there are said^^^ to have been earth tremors and a 30-foot 

 water wave in Cook Inlet in connection with an eruption of the Saint 

 Augustine volcano there. This was on October 6, 1883. 



Deckert shows many of the earthquakes referred to above on his map 

 of earthquakes in North America/^^ and in addition lists three earth- 

 quakes in the Aleutian Islands in 1877, 1878, and 1879, all presumably 

 volcanic shocks. A fourth was felt at Kodiak in 1889. 



F. G. Plummer^s list of earthquakes on the Pacific coast,^^* as reprinted 

 by E. S. Holden,^^^ contains nearly all of the earthquakes thus far cited 

 and a few others, most of them in connection with volcanic outbursts, as 

 during the eruption of Pauloff in 1786; at Kaviak in 1854; at Black 

 Peak, near Chignik, on August 28, 1892; at Unalaska, September 23, 

 1892, and on Saint Augustine volcano in the summer of 1893. 



Several of the Alaskan shocks referred to above are also recorded in the 

 yearly lists of Pacific Coast earthqu.akes from 1888 to 1898 by E. C. 

 Holden,i36 T. F. Keeler,^^'^ and C. D. Perrine.^^« 



There have doubtless been many other earthquakes in Alaska, but no 

 list or description of them is available. The Eussian records of various 

 sorts are a great unused storehouse of information of this kind. The 

 records of the voluntary Weather Bureau observers of the TJ. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture doubtless also contain much information concerning 

 other earthquake shocks in Alaska at various places and times between 

 the time of the American purchase of Alaska and the end of the century. 



In connection with the gathering of information concerning the seis- 

 mic disturbances of 1899 at Yakutat, which are the subject of this paper, 

 a considerable amount of unpublished data has come into my hands con- 

 cerning other earthquakes in Alaska. I have thought it best briefly to 

 summarize this, both because it enables me to place the Yakutat Bay 

 shocks of 1899 in their proper setting as a series of especially severe 

 tectonic shocks in an earthquake-shaken region, where there are both 

 tectonic and volcanic earthquakes, and because I feel that this informa- 

 tion, fragmentar}^ and incomplete as it is, should be placed on record for 

 the use of those interested in seismology. In 1901 a magnetograph was 



isa George Davidson : Science, vol. iii, 1884, pp. 186-189. 



133 E. Decl^ert : Zeitsclirift der Gesellschaf t fiir Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1902, Tafel 5 and 

 pp. 367-389. 



13* Reported earthquakes on the Pacific coast. Publications, Astronomical Society of 

 the Pacific, vol. viii, 1896, p. 78. 



"3 A catalogue of earthquakes on the Pacific coast, 1769 to 1897. Smithsonian Mis- 

 cellaneous Collections, 1087, vol. xxxvii, 1898, pp. 1-253. 



138 American Journal of Science (series 3), vol. 37, 1889, pp. 392-402. Bulletin no. 95, 

 U. S. Geological Survey, 1892. 



13^ Bulletin no. 68, U. S. Geological Survey. 1890. 



138 Bulletins nos. 112, 114, 129, 147, 155, 161. U. S. Geological Survey, 1893 to 1899. 



