TIME OF EARTHQUAKE : RATE OF PROPAGATION. 



285 



Locality. 



Time, said to have been verified by- 

 telegraph from Madras. 



Kheri District, 



H. M. 



Lakhimpur .... 

 Do. .... 



6—10 



6—15 



Jaipur District. 





Jaipur .... 



Do 



Jhunjhnu .... 

 Kotputli .... 



6—15 



6—25 

 5—55 

 6—11 



Etawah District. 



Etawah .... 

 Do 



6—9 

 6—13 



Conclusion. 



Nearly all the above examples tell the same tale of mutual irrecon- 

 cilability : in particular I would draw attention to the varying values 

 furnished by different observers for the same towns, which are conclu- 

 sive ; for time difference in the same town could only arise from one 

 cause, namely, imperfect registration. Such differences for the in- 

 stances mentioned above are respectively 6, 15, 3, 20, 5, 1.0 and 4 

 minutes, which give an average of 9 minutes. 



It is clear, therefore, in spite of their being substantiated, that no 

 reliance can be placed on these recorded times, and 

 no deduction drawn from them can have any weight, 

 except the deduction that the ideas of time accuracy and the lack of 

 conscientiousness of the operator or observer, as well as the poor time- 

 keeping qualities of the clocks in use in many of the up-country offices, 

 introduce so large a measure of error that their evidence is useless from 

 the point of view of learning anything new about the rate of transmis- 

 sion of the earthquake waves so recorded. The fact of the matter is 

 that over the greater part of provincial India uniformly co-ordinated 

 time is not yet recognised as a necessity, and therefore in spite of the 

 well-meant daily signal it is not, as a matter of fact, kept. 



