162 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
occupants out.” Several panics occurred in schools. One man relates 
that his wife and sister “rushed to him.” Nurses were alarmed in a 
hospital. Telephone girls left the switch-boards in Chicago, and 
“were scared” in Clinton. A particular mention is made of a seam- 
stress who was alarmed, and of another woman who sank frightened 
on a bed. But in no case is a man specially mentioned as having been 
afraid. In places where men were scared, fright was general, and 
there was then no cause for such special mention. The evidence of 
this difference can hardly be charged to an unconscious discrimination 
by the reporters in favor of the stronger sex. It must be regarded as a 
noteworthy incident in this earthquake that its intensity was near 
that limit, which is strong enough to scare women but not men. This 
limit must approximate seven in the Rossi-Forel scale, and the un- 
sentimental seismologist may hence add another criterion for correctly 
locating the seventh isoseismal. 
One general observation which has a practical bearing should per- 
haps not be left unmentioned. It is that the earthquake was more 
strongly felt in the upper stories of high buildings than on the ground 
floors. In Dubuque “the upper part of the high buildings swayed.” 
A reporter in Burlington says that the shock was “felt most in the 
upper stories of tall buildings.” “ The floors shook in the upper stories 
of large buildings” in Clinton, and in Davenport “the tremors were 
mostly noted in high office buildings.” In Chicago the shock was not 
felt on the ground floors, but mostly “ only in the higher stories.” The 
top floors are especially mentioned as having shaken in some of the 
university buildings in Evanstown and in a college building at Cedar 
Rapids. In the architecture produced by the demands of industry and 
business in this part of the world, the eventuality of a severe earth- 
quake has not entered as an element of consideration. ‘The experience 
of a half century shows that this neglect is probably justified. Never- 
theless, it is appalling to contemplate how different the story of this 
recent jar would appear if the intensity of the disturbance had been 
just a little greater than it was. From our past experience we may safely 
infer that the valley of the upper Mississippi is in a region where earth- 
quakes are not frequent. Are we also justified in believing that when 
such disturbances do occur, they will not be severe? The violence of 
the New Madrid earthquakes a hundred years ago makes the answer to 
this question uncertain. ‘Time alone will tell. 
