50 Dr. C. Davison on 



2. Very slight, felt only by a few persons in conditions of 

 perfect quiet, especially on the upper floors of houses, or by 

 many sensitive and nervous persons. 



3. Slight, felt by several persons, but by few relatively to 

 the number of inhabitants in a given place ; said by them to 

 have been hardly felt, without causing any alarm, and in 

 general without their being sensible that it was an earthquake 

 until it was known that others had also felt it. 



4. Sensible or moderate, not felt generally, but felt by 

 many persons indoors, though by few on the ground-floor, 

 without causing any alarm, but with shaking of fastenings, 

 crystals, creaking of floors, and slight oscillation of suspended 

 objects. 



5. Eather strong, felt generally indoors, but by few out- 

 side, with waking of those asleep, with alarm of some persons, 

 rattling of doors, ringing of bells, rather large oscillation of 

 suspended objects, stopping of clocks. 



6. Strong, felt by everyone indoors, and by many with 

 alarm and flight into the open air; fall of objects in houses, 

 fall of plaster, with some slight cracks in badly-built houses. 



7. Very strong, felt with general alarm and flight from 

 houses, sensible also out-of-doors; ringing of church-bells, 

 fall of chimney-pots and tiles ; cracks in numerous buildings, 

 but generally slight. 



8. Ruinous, felt with great alarm, partial ruin of some 

 houses, and frequent and considerable cracks in others ; with- 

 out loss of life, or only with a few isolated cases of personal 

 injury. 



9. Disastrous, with complete or nearly complete ruin of 

 some houses and serious cracks in many others, so as to 

 render them uninhabitable ; a few lives lost in different parts 

 of populated places. 



10. Very disastrous, with ruin of many buildings and 

 great loss of life, cracks in the ground, landslips from moun- 

 tains, &c. 



(11) Oldham Scale. — Mem. Geol. Survey of India, vol. xxix. 

 1899, pp. 42-43. 



The country over which the great Indian earthquake of 

 1897 was felt is " largely a wild, thinly populated country, 

 and even in the thickly-populated parts brick and stone 

 buildings are rare and widely scattered/'' In studying this 

 earthquake, Mr. R. D. Oldham therefore found it impossible 

 to define more than the following degrees of intensity : — 



1. The destruction of brick and stone buildings practically 

 universal. 



