Evening Star Newspaper, September 16, 1923, Page 81

: THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, SEPTEMBER 16, 1923—PART 5. D.C. Man Who Caught First Tremors of Big Quake Explains Earth Shocks | ® District School System Started in Wooden Hut Nearly 120 Years Ago WASHINGTON'S FIRST LARGE BRICK SCHOOL, THE RICHARD WALLACH SCHOOL, PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE AND 8TH STREET SOUTHEAST, BUILT IN 186%. IT WAS CONSIDERED A MODEL FOR SCHOOLS THROUGHOUT THE NATION AT TIME OF CONSTRUCTION. BY GENE THOMAS. School days, school days. Dear ald goiden rule dass, Readin’ and writin' and WOMORROW Washington's 000 children and vacation. | rithmetic. 70,- hree | | i school months of They will fill 160 elementary | and high buildings. each hav- | ing from eight to eighty rooms. They will overflow into se ht por-, table schoolhouses 00 crlnmll o educate | | summer sehool yenty Over 2,3 teachers will greet them them this vear will.cost $38.000 a day How different 116 years ago ‘from that morning| when Schoolmaster | Richard White led thirty and { Eirls Washington's first hool- ! house and, with brief religious serv- chool system into ices, started the pul of the District of Columbia That called School, was located at 1700 I street | northwest, where the home of S | tor Frank B. Brandezce of C eut now stand It was feet long, story high space beside and and the; muddy roadv was little | traveled 8 But when Schoolmaster White rang | the bell in the steeple at front of the | sloping shingled roof play was over.. Boys and girls hurrfed to see their schoolroom. Four of unpol- ished, uncarved, non-adjustable desks and benches, separated by narrow aisles, awaited them, Girls hung their wraps on hooks at | right of the doorways. Boys tossed caps and hats upon hooks at the left At the other end of -the room, on a rlatform, was Schoolmaster White's desk .and chair, flanked by black boards in easels. The wall behind him and space between windows on sides of the room were bare. Con- gress necessitated this by limiting cost of erection and equipment of the school to $600. As if to offset the meager appro- priation, the legislators became quite generous in endowing the school with aims. This little building, the act creating it stated, was the foundation of “an institution in which every epe- cies of knowledge essential to the liberal education of youth may even- tually be acquired.” 1 | | schoolhouse, Western ena- | necti- | a wooden structur twenty feet wide There was plenty behind it fn front and one play rows HAA ! ‘VAsrm:\w*.Tnx S first school board. | chirged with achlevement of this goal, was popularly chosen. It con- sisted of thirtcen members, seven elected by the city council and six named by individuals contributing to Thomas Jefferson, then President of the United States, was elected grst president of the school board. He had contributed $200 to the school and showed his willingness to’ give time and thought to advancing edu in the National Capital. Accepting the school dency, Jefferson wrote: “MONTICELLO, August 14, 1805. “Sincerely believing that knowledge promotes the happiness of man, I shall ever be disposed to contribute my endeavors toward its extension, and in the insfance under considera- tion will willingly undertake the du- ties proposed to me, so far as others ot paramount obligation will permit my attention to them. I pray you to accépt my friendly salutations and my assurances of great respect and es- (Signed) “THOMAS JEFFERSON." teem. The first school board meeting was held in the Supreme Court room, United States Capitol, In August, 1805, From the beginnig the school board insisted on maintenance of the same high scholarship standards which to- day make a Washington high school diploma respected by every college in the mation. Records show that on June 30, 1830, an -examination of the school iwas held, lasting six hours, which, not being completed, was continued for five hours the next day. School was conducted every day except Sundays from September 10 to July 31. Sctoal hours were 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. from March 15 ¢o September 18, and the re- mainder of the year from 9 a.m. to 3 p:m., with & recess of only one-fourth of an hour. There was' na let-up in these long school days, weeks and years until about 1860. Then Saturday was made & holiday. Soon afterward the sum- mer vacation was lengthened and the school day shortened. To encourage diligence in study, the, scheol board, In 1825, offered as awards ‘to such pupils s excel in literature, or by their uniformly cor- rect deportment and good mo,l con- duct and behavior merit the upnroba- tion of the teachers and trustees, & full suit of clothes to each boy and a full dress to each girl | tion board presi- | scribed, | twin virtue, godliness, THOMAS JEFFERSON, FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA’S BOARD OF EDUCATION. HE CONTRIBUTED TWO HU RED DOLLARS TOWARD THE ERECTION OF A LITTLE WOODEN SCHOOL HOUSE AT 1700 I STREET NORTHWEST. school to teaching the three R's. April 5, 1824, it solemnly resolved: e Oon “That every scholar before he enters school each morning shall have his head combed and his face washed, and that it shall be the duty of the teacher to cause the said rule to be regularly en- forced.” Cleanliness having thus been pre- the board next aimed at the by this resolu- tion of July 16, 182 “That the president of the board be requested to attend school every Sab- bath morning and lecture the pupils of said school on their moral and religious duties, and that it be the duty of the teacher to cause the children to assem- ble for that purpose every Sunday morning before 9 o'clock.” ok * HE progressive spirit of the early school boards is shown in a peti- tion to the city council, in 1833, re- questing a female teacher to instruct girls in knitting and sewing. More than sixty years later, this idea was realized in the introduction of manual training. Washington school boards a hun- dred years ago had to be as resource- ful as present-day school officials to house the rapldly growing, city's school children. The eastern free school, which Congress prescribed should be erected “east of the Capitol.and within half a mile of it,” was built about the same time as the western school, but these were overcrowded in ten years. In 1816, President James Madison was asked to allow his stable at 14th and G streets northwest, where the Washington safety councii is |1ocated now, to:be used as a school. Madison did not grant the request, but his successor, James Monroe, turned the stable over to the persis- tent school board, in- 1821. This schoolhouse was known for years thereafter as “Jefferson’s stable.” Another worry of our early school officials, which their successors say they have inherited, was impossibility of stretching school funds to meet schobl needs. Schoolmaster Richard White's sal- ary was $500 a year, but he was required by Congress “out of this sum to pay for fuel consumed, for all other expenses incidental to & school and for such assistant teachers as may be necessary.” He struggled for a few months to make his $500 meet “all expenses in- cidental to a school” and a family Desides, then resigned and petitioned the schoo! board for money to enable him to remove his family from Wash- ington. In the first dosen years of Wash- ington’s school history no less than twenty different teachers were elect- ed and successively rdsigned because of the meager allowance for school maintenance. : Nor did all of this $500, or the $600 for schoolhouse construction, come from Congress: A portion of jt was solicited from President Jefferson and other District residents. Puplls who g eoFEeD IR MO LA D Dald-d5-e quarter year for this “advanced work." Lotteries, authorized by Congfess, were conducted from 1812 to 1838 | for ‘the benefit of the public schools. Large revenues were thus gained and invested in stocks, only the interest being applied to support of schools This investment totalled $80,000 in 1881, when Congress was asked to erect Washington's first high school. Congress, not yet in favor of employ- ing public money for high school edu- | cation, directed that invested lottery revenues be used for the desired building. i Thus the building on O street north- west, near 7th street, which for thirty-four years housed Central High School and is now Columbia Junior High School, camée from funds derived from questionable sources in the light of present-day ethics. * x * * 'OT all board meetings, however, were consumed in passing reso- lutions tending to improve children’s minds, souls and. bodies and to finance this work, as the following extract from board minutes proves: “July 11, 1833. A quorum not being present, the only business transacted wag by the Rev. Mr. McCormick (a board member), who united in the bonds of holy wedlock a*Mr. Swallow to a blooming Miss Lloyd of Fort Washington. The ceremony was brief, the fee small, the parties mutually satisfled and the board adjourned. At- test: John Coyle, jr., secretary.” Congress having challenged Wash- ington schools to supply “every spe- cles of knowledge essential to the lib- eral education of youth” and the school board having prescribed eleven-hour examinations, schoolmas- ters were equally as exacting in de- manding study and progress from their charges. One of the students in the “Jeffer- son’s stable” School was Alexander T. Stuart, superintendent of District of Columbia schools from 1900 to 1906 and from 1908 to 1911 and now a sistant superintendent. He recalls his stalwart Scotch master, Strong John Thompson, whose name Thomson School and community center bear. “Many a pupil of Strong John Thomson left his school convinced that he was styled rather than , named strong because of the might with which he wielded the birch and strap,” Mr. Stuart said. £l “Hanging from his desk was a long piece of leather harness, split in two at the end, and he was not slow to acquaint slothful pupils with it. “On his schoolroom wall :hung a' banner of silk, behind which pupils proudly marched on festal days, and on it was inserted the stimulating motto, ‘Ad astra per aspéra’ (To suc- cess despite difficulty). Below was written another equally cheerful and characteristic legend, ‘The roots are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.’ “Though his methods of enforcing study were not always cordlally ap- proved by his pupils, his stern insist- | ment never failed to bear a worthy | harvest in after life.” | Public school pupils of a hundred | years ago were much poorer than those of today. This was the greatest obstacle to progress of the early com- | mon scfiodl. Congress helped produce idea that public school is a auper school by wording of the act ing D. C. schools, It stated that poor children should be taught read- ing. writing, and grammar.” By barring from public sehool pupils, whose parents could pay for their | education, the school board furthered { this conception H © scholar. whose parents’ income ; excy $1.50 a day. can attend pub- lic school. unless there are more than four children in the family." the school board ruled as late as 1831 . schools were open fathers’ jcents a day for each member of his « famil At a single board meeting that year, twelve puplls were expelled | because it ‘was discovered their fath- ers’ incomes exceeded this sum, “The popular belief that public and pauper are SYnonymous was not over- ome until during the civil war. Less than 5 per cent of Washington's ,school population attended public schools, at times, before that,” Assis- tant Supt. Stuart said. Whether the difficulty be refusal of fhe community to support schools Jack of funds, or want of buildings, the public schools of Washington al- ways have found friends in Execu- tive Mansion, on Supreme court benéh, or in Congress chambers, who made matters a little better. After Jefferson and the other |pioneers in Washington. who provid- |ed education for the National Capital's {children before the city was years old, came other nationally- !famed men to help our public schools {through their infanc: Among tire most active were Presi- dents John Quincy Adams and James {Monroe, Justice Woodbury, Caleb ICushing. Prof. Joseph Henry, head of the Smithsonian Institution; George J. Abbott, private secretary to Daniel | Webster; George Watterson. first librarian of Congress; Daniel Carroll, one of the original proprietors of the District of Columbia; Rev. Andrew T. {McCormick and Rev. William Mat- |thews, distinguished clergymen; Wil- liam Seaton, an editor of the National Intelligence, and mayors of Wash- ington, Robert Brent, John P. Van Ness, Roger C. Weightman, William A. Smallwood, Peter Force and John |W. Mau Congress' personal interest in the {1ocal school system was capitalized learly in the nineteenth century, when a 1835, only to children of widows, or those whose pay was less than 20 obtain funds to establish a collage here. The board circular letter con- tained this paragraph: “The parent who sends his son to Washington will find for him in his representative to Congress a guardian and a friend who, during a large part of the year, will be his associaze, will observe his progress in his studies, superintend his morals and perceive the real condition and character of the seminary; and thus be able, from time to time, to satisfy parental in- quiry. In the quarter century following the civil war, Congress and the school board took. five steps which caused the entire community to respect und support its public_schools. Thess ad- vances were® 1. Appointment of.a superintendent of schools. 2. Introduction of the graded s: tem. 3. Construction of larger and better equipped school buildings. 4. Establishment of a normal school. 5. Establishment of a high school. * kK %k HE first superintendent of schools, appointed in 1869, was Zalmon Richards, one of the founders of the National Education Assocfation and for vears a successful private school teacher here. He served a year and was succeeded by J. Ormond Wilson, {tormerly a member of ‘the school |board. ! “Mr. Wilson was the master or- {ganizer of the school system as it jexists today. He introduced - the graded system and manual training, established normal and high schools, land was the prime méver in the plan to give Washington Dbetter school buildings. - For him Wiison -Normal School was named,” Assistant Supt. Stuart sald, The Richard Wallace School, $th street and Pennsylvania + avenue southeast, was the first large brick schoolhouse to be erected in Wash- ington.. It' still is occupied by ten classrooms full of children, “When finished in 1864, it was not only the pride of Washington, but ] 1 five | the ambitious school board strove to | Father Tondorf of Georgetown Says Few Such Disturbances Are of Volcanic Origin— Real Beginning of Their Scientific Study and Observation Began in Japan—Work in That Field Has Resulted in Aids to Everyday Tasks. BY JAMES A. BUCHANAN. HE recent appealing catastro- phe that left Japan utricken.! with thousands dead or starv- ing, has brought again to the minds of laymen the question, “What causes earthquakes?’ While scien- tists have been working on the subject for many years—in fact, for hundreds of years—the general public has for-) gotten for the moment the cause of these severe disturbances. The great masses of the people have given the matter no thought at all. Many of the ancients made refer- ences to earthquakes, but thelr con- ceptions of the causes were fanciful #hd irrational. Unsatisfactory attempts were made by Joseph Priestly and other scien- tists In the eighteenth century to cor neet earthquakes with electric phe- nomena, but nothing of a definite| charagter was established. One may say that investigations of seismic phe- ' nomena began in the middle of the nineteenth century and have been continued. i Investigators have agreed that earthquakes are caused by the slip- ping of the earth along certain lines, and this movement is at points known as “faults” Thus, the great earth- quake of October, 1891, In Japan,| known as the Mino-Owari earth-| quake, was connected with the for-| mation or development of a fault, which, according to Prof. B. Koto, was traced on the surface for a dis- tance of nearly fifty miles and pre- sented in places a scarp with a ver- tical throw of as mugch as twenty feet, while probably the maximum dis- placement “underground was very much greater. The recent shock was, according to advices received from the Imperial University at Tokio, centered in the sea, a distance of more than sixty miles from the stricken eity, and Prof. A. Lawson bf the University of Cali- fornia states that many of the quakes that have occurred in the Pacific ocean area have been caused by the sinking of the sea’s floor and that in |places gréeat amounts of rocks have! slipped vertically, or nearly so. In this same connection Lawson says that there is little danger of a {city of any size being engulfed, ow- ing to the fact that there is not suf- ficient room in the region of the fault {cor the city to enter and be engulfea, for the earth is too compact In commenting upon the tidal waves | that almost always follow a shake, [ne says that these are caused by the fact that when the ocean floor sinks lgreat volumes of water rush in. The largest vertical displacement of Which there is any record was at | Yakatat, Alaska, where, in 1899, the’ {fall was forty-seven feet. ¥ *'y ONTRARY to the general belief, earthquakes may be of different {forms. For instance, they may be | undulatery, that is, along the ground; | they may be vertical, or even rotary Many have asked during the past few days about the frequency of these | disturbances. If we pick out the well {marked earthquake districts of the {world and give to each of them a seismicity or earthquake frequency per unit area, one-third of that in |Japan, the conclusion arrived at is { that considerable areas of our planet | {are, on the average, shaken every half | { hour. The great majority of these are | { not preceptible, although we find that | from time to time shakes will oc- |cur that are not noticed on land, but icsn readily be detected if they oc- | jcur near a body of water. There, if | | one 1ooks closely, he will note a suc- | | cession of ripples on the surface of | | the lake or pond. Some sciemtists say | | that the actual range of horizontal| {motion of the ground is less thanj {one-tenth of an inch usually. In Jap- jan, however, nine inches or even one {foot movement visible to the naked |eve has been recorded. | It is reported that the recent quake in the land of Nippon was about sixty miles distant, and looking up the {quake that occurred at Charleston, |s. C., in 1886, we find that its focal | center was twelve miles underground. | { This conclusion must be regarded as only approximating the depth, how- It is remembered that a few previous to the shock, quakes felt at Summerville, a town about twenty miles distant from Charleston. The shock at the latter} place was of such severity that in a little more than a minute nearly every building in the city was more or less damaged and many lives were lost. The San Francisco earthquake was plainly due to a fault which can be traced more than 190 miles. Move- ment all along this line was disclosed by later investigations. The worst damage occurred on alluvial soil or made ground. The great damage that was done to the city was, of course, the result of the fire that swept the area, { and once this fire had ghined headway, there was only one way to arrest its progress, and that was by dynamiting { great areas, so that the flames would have nothing to feed upon. The great Neapolitan earthquake in 1857 resulted In the deaths of 12,300 persons. The disaster known as the great Indian earthquake, sometimes termed the Assam earthquake, since 1t was-in that province that the effects were most severe, caused shocks to be felt over a large part of India and, in- | deed, far beyond its boundaries. For- tunately, the area that suffered greatest disturbance was a wild country, al- though some towns were in the affected zone. For Instance, at Shillong the stonework of bridges, churches and other buildings was levelled to the ground. The epicentral tract was of great size, having an estimated area of 6,000 square miles. It is nypuul that this quake was connected” with a movement of zub- terranean rock masses of enormous magnitude along what geologists call a great thrust-plane, or a series of such planes, having a length of about 200 miles and a minimum breadth of not less than fitty miles. Oldham, noted authority on earthquakes, pointed out that this can be . compared for size with the great Fallle du Midi in Bel- gium, which is known to extend for a distance of 120 miles. The depth of the principal focus, though not actually to be dnscrmln«. | 10 | Res FATHER TONDORF, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY EARTHQU was probably less than five miles From the focus many secondary faults and fractures proceeded, some reaching the surface of the ground. n landslips accompanled the earthquake, and as an indirect effect of these slides the form of water courses became In certain cases modified. Permanent changes of level were also observed. Eight years after the Assam quake there was another, kncwn the Kangra. While this was not as severe as the Assam, nevertheless about 20,000 lives were lost. rmous as * ok % NE of the peculiar incidents ob- served the Jamaica quake of 1807 was the turning of the statue of Qugen Victosia one-eight of a revolution on its pedestal. In August of the pry ceding yéar a disastrous shake took place at Valparaiso. In fact, the entire year 1906 was marked with exceptional seismic activity. There are many in who remember the terrible earthquake that occurred in Calabria and Sicily on December 28, 1908, practically destroying Messina and ggio. The total loss of life at that time was more than 77,000. The prin- cipal center of the disturbance was in the Strait of Massina, although there were independent centers in the Calabrian peninsula, a region that had been visited by severe earthquakes in 1905 and 1907. That these could not be traced to any volcanic source is shown by the fact that neither during nor be- fore the catastrophe was there any spe- cial volcanic disturbance at Etna or Stromboli. The only deduction that may be made with any degree of certainty Is that there must have been a movement along a great plane of weak- mess in the vicinity of the Strait of Messina. The sea floor of the strait, no doubt, suffered great disturbance, resulting in the remarkable movement of water observed on the coast. According to the record, at first the sea retired and then a great wave rolled | in, followed by others of lesser size, a {though at Catania the second was said to have been larger than the first. At Messina the height of the wave was 2.70 meters, while the peak was reached at San Alessio, where it was 11.7 meters, Great Britain has not been immune to earthquakes, but most of those that have been felt from time to time in { that section of the world may generally be traced to the formation of faults, or, rather, to incidents in the growth of old faults. . The East Anglian earthquake in 1884 | was the most disastrous of many cen- turies. Dr. C. Davison, who has given much study to the matter, is respons- ible for the theory that several of the quakes in Great Britain were “twins.” A twin earthquake has two maxima of intensity proceeding from two foci, whereas a double earthquake has its successive impulses from what is practically -a single focus. While the great majority of earth- quakes are of the tectonic type, there are some which are evidently connected, directly or indirectly, with volcanic ac- tivity—for example, the quakes that disturbed the Isle of Ischia in 1881 and 1883. These, according to the belief of scientists, were due fo volcanic ac- tivities. In addition to the two types just mentioned . there . are occasional quakes of minor importance which may be referred to as the collapse of the roof of eaverns or other falls of rock in underground cavities at no great depth. Prof. T. J. J. See holds that most earthquakes are due, Gi- rectly or indirectly, to the explosive action of steam, formed chiefly by the leakage of sea water through the ocean floor. * Kk kX measure the surface speed at which earthquake waves travel it is necessary to have accurste time measures. Observations during the Charleston earthquake were at that time of exceptional value, since they were made over a large area where standard time was kept. Unfelt move. ments of the ground are registered in the earthquake récords, or sels- mograms, obtained by the delicate in- struments used by modern selsmolog- ists. From the study of records of a great earthquake from a distant source,’ sometimes tormed a talesels- EXPERT ON KES. Photograph by Edmonston. P Qlatusiince pomeritiarenttimits. | ferences have drawn with re- spect to the constitution of the in- terior of the earth. The complete jrecord shows two phases of “pre- liminary tremors” preceding the prin- éipal waves. It is belleved that while the preliminary tremors pass through | the body of the earth, the principal | waves travel along or parallel to the | surface. Probably the first phase represents the condensational and | the second phase distortional waves From the different rates of propa- been gation of the precursors it has been | | Inferred by R. D. Oldham that below | the outer crust, which is probably not '9\'ery|"hbre of the same thickness, | the earth is of practically uniform | character to a depth of about six- | tenths of the radius, but the remain- Ing four‘tenths may represent a core differing physically and perhaps chemically from the outer part. This same authority suggests, from his study of oceanic and continental wave paths, that there is a difference In the constitution of the earth oceans and beneath continents | The sounds that are associated with seismic phenomena, often described as subterranean rumbling and roar- ing,” are not without scientific in- terest. “Isacoustic lines” are curves drawn through places where the | sound is heard by the same percen- tage of observers. The advances that have beend made in the study of earthquakes were in- itlated in work commenced in Japan. Years ago that nation, desirous of gaining western knowledge, invited & number of savants from other lands to visit the land of the cherry blos- soms, and these visitors were im- pressed by the frequent shakingé of the ground Interest in these phe- nomena gained more rapidly than heir frequency, and it was felt that something should be done for their systematic study. At midnight on February 22, 1850, movements more violent than usual | oceurred—chimneys were shattered or | rotated, tiles slid down roofs, and in the morning it was seen that Yoko- hama had the appearance of a city that had suffered a bombardment. B fore the ruins had been removed a meeting was convened and the Sei mological * Society of Japan estab- lished. The twenty volumes of original papers published by this body summarize to a large extent the results of the later study of seis- mology. Of course, from time to time meetings have been held and other data has been added, so that ord of earthquakes, their results and causes. * ATHER F. Georgetown University, who Is |recognized as one of the leading au- thorities on the matter of earth- quakes, when discussing the recent catastrophe said: “There is no ques- tion that this earthquake was caused by the slipping along a fracture. The older theory was that disturbances, such as those that have just occurred, }were of volcanic action. Dr. Nauman advanced the theory that earthquakes were of tectonic origin. ,We find many of the earthquakes to be along lines of weakness in the earth's crust. This was not the way of those of volcanic origin. The latter were very rarely of a severe nature. They never were widely felt and consequently were not recorded at any great dis- tances. When asked as to whether or not it was possible to estimate where the earthquakes start or, to phrase it scientifically, where the slip occur: Father Tondorf said: “These matters can only be arriyved at in a general way, for instance, in a comparison of three stations. Of course, however, it is possible some- times to indicate from a sinsle sta- tion, moting the distance, but you generally get only about 3 or 4 per cent accuracy by this method. We are aided in our work by the knowl- edge that certain areas are sus- ceptible; hence, we work by elimina- tion.” Father Tondorf is not only a man of the church, but he is a scientist of beneath | today there is a comprchensive rec-' of | first word given to the world locat- {Ing the place where the .articuaka occurred, he vory modestly stated that ,he had given to the world the fact {of the distance. The writer, however. {knows that the first word that was given to the world came irom the loflice of a scientist on Georgetown Hill at 6 am. on the morninz the {shock was felt in Japan and it was jon the press wires in Washington long before Europe had any knowl- ledze of it ! Continuing, Father Tondorf waid ,“Of course, while I gave out the dis- tance, I was rather certatn in my own Imind as to about where it happened. 1One cannot tell the exact spot where |H|l< slip occurs. For instance, you cannot say that it was twelve and ione-half miles outside of Tokio. That ywould be a wild guess. Could such a thing be determined? In answer to that question I would not want to say it could, because I do not know. You ve asked about the article that was ipublished some time ago about ,method of foretelling earthquakes. {am ignorant on that question.” | Returning for a moment to the matter of the earthquake at Charles- yton, 8. C., in 1886, and the subsequent lone that was the primary cause of laying San Francisco low, the man of {the church said: “There is little rea- son to believe that we have quakes of veleanic origin In country. Those that caused da: in Charleston and San Francisco were tectonic in their origin. They are different from the ones they have in | Hawaii. As'I sald before, these voi- canlc earthquakes are localized. Take, for instance, the ones in the Philip- pines, the Taal volcano, for exampic. The one which took place in Alaska a number of vears ago was of tee- tonic origin.” H,\\':xs in mind the building site | on the narrow strip of land they 11 New York city, the writer asked Father Tondorf if New York city | might not some day suffer from one of these catastrophes. His reply was: “New York city is practically im- mune, for, as far as we know, there is no slip in the region of that great |municipality. The nogthern part of the state 1s not quite so immune, for, if you will turn back the pages of history you will find that in 1663 there was a shake in the northern part of New York, that portion that is on the Canadian border. “It may be of interest to Somé to know that Washington is not abso- lutely immune to earthquakes. We have felt quakes here, but the differ- ence is that Washington is not the center. Take, for instance, the shock that occurred in 1918. Its center was {down in the Virginias. Of course, it is only my belief, but I doubt very much that Washington will =uffer !frnm a quake of any consequence. The chance is a remote one, but, of course, it is still there. as I stated before, are caused by slips. These slips in turn are caused by weaknesses pri- marily, secondarily by stresses brought about by the abutting geo- logical factors and also, possibly, ac- cording to the theory of Dr. Omori, by heavy precipitations and baro- metric varlations. I very much doubt if the interlor cooling of the earth has anything to do with the earth- quakes from which we have suffered. “The instrument we have here prag- tically records earthquakes in any part of the world, ‘but_you must also ! remember that these instruments are | rather freakish. They sometimes re- icord great distances, while nearby shocks are not recorded at all x k¥ x a 1 * x x ¥ ! 16HE practical certainty of the | dislocation theory calls for a | more thorough study of geological formations, so that the more unstable reas may be indicated on the map. | This accomplished, more exact inter- | pretations of the warnings given by lesser shocks would be useful in places situated along a serious fault line. Had this been done in the past Messina and San Francisco would have been better prepared to meet jthe shocks that were so disastrous to them.” One of the effects of earthquakes is to cause architects, builders and others to revise thelr plans of con- struction. We find that the students of engineering in Japan receive a spa- cial course of lectures on this subject. Another application of seismometry has been to record the vibration of railway trains, bridges and steam- ships. An instrument of sultable con- struction will glve records of the more or less violent jolting and vibratory movements of a train and so localize Irregularities due to changes Tn the character of ballast and sleepers, to variation in guage, etc. An instrument placed on a loco- motive throws considerable light bn the effects due to the methods of balancing the wheels, and by altera- tions in this respect, a saving of fuel can be made, Another thing that the study of earthquakes has taught Is the por- tions of the ocean bed to avold when laying a cable, for, with the maps in existence ‘showing the “shock areas,” it is possible, to an extent at least, to avoid reglons that are known to be in the quake zone. Chinese and Corn Meal. From the National Farmer and Stock Grower. Corn flour is the principal article of diet of the South Manchurian Chinese, the daily per capita con- sumption being said to be between two and one-half to three pounas. iNext to the soya bean, the corn crap is the most important in the Antung district, according to' Consul W. R. Lgngdon in a report to the Depart- ment of Commerce. There {s no way of estimating the annual Yield of corn, but it Is sufficlent to provide about two million Chinese with their main source of sustenance and allow a surplus of nearly half a million bushels for export from Antung to other Chinese ports. The grinding and marketing of corn flour has $o far been in the hands of small grain retail dealers who crush small quan- note, and combined with his extensive | tities of flour in their shops to meet knowledge is a charming modesty, for, when asked-if his-was not-the stenes turn the daily demand. The crushing is done with primitive 5rln£lc mill- by & blindfolded