2 MIDDLEMISS : KANGRA EARTHQUAKE. 





dence has been furnished by a great many local observers scattered 

 all over India 1 by means of the nlled-in earthquake question-forms. 

 From these I have drawn freely for my information, especially where 

 no first-hand information was available ; and their assistance in build- 

 ing up an account of the earthquake has been invaluable. But at 

 the same time I have found it impossible to quote everybody and 

 everything ; partly because over many areas the same phenomena are 

 repeatedly referred to in the same way by many observers, and partly 

 because a great deal of the information is of such a nature that it 

 loses cogency by the side of more definite, though much simpler 

 facts. It is nevertheless to be hoped that all those patient con- 

 tributors who have assisted me in collecting the material for this 

 report, but whose remarks have gone without mention in this book, 

 will not on that account conclude that their work was useless. On 

 the contrary, in matters of evidence it is just by means of a wealth of 

 repetition and corroboration of certain phenomena, that a compiler 

 can feel what is the next best thing to an absolute certainty with 

 regard to them — which he could not do on the strength of only one 

 or two, often imperfectly agreeing, accounts. 



From the cheerful and frequently painstaking way official and non- 

 official contributors have sent in their experiences, one may deduce the 

 dominant, and I think correct, point of view, that a destructive earth- 

 quake, being a universal misfortune, imposes the moral obligation on 

 all to unite in doing their best to understand it ; inasmuch as such an 

 attempt is the first step in the direction of prevention, or at least 

 mitigation, of its horrors. 2 



For the gathering of this evidence from all available parts of India 



Earthquake ques- where the earthquake was felt, a printed question 



tion.form. f orm containing a request for information on the 



following points was issued urgently by the Director of the Geological 



1 See list of names at end of Part I. 



2 Owing at least largely to the time of the earthquake, but also to its severity and 

 suddenness in the more central areas, this earthquake was more than 10 times as dis- 

 astroua to life as the Assam Earthquake of 1897. About 20,000 human beings are 

 oetimated to have perished by it. 



