Earthquakes and Other Earth Movements

In bygone superstitious times lightning and thunder were regarded as supernatural visitations. But as these phenomena became better understood, and men learned how to avoid their destructive power, the superstition was gradually dispelled. Thus it is with Earthquakes: the more clearly they are understood, the more confident in the universality of law will man become, and the more will his mental condition be advanced.

In his ‘History of Civilisation in England,’ Buckle has laid considerable stress upon the manner in which earthquakes, volcanoes, and other of the more terrible forms in which the workings of nature reveal themselves

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 to us, have exerted an influence upon the imagination and understanding; and just as a sudden fright may affect the nerves of a child for the remainder of its life, we have in the annals of seismology records which indicate that earthquakes have not been without a serious influence upon the mental condition of whole communities.

To a geologist there are perhaps no phenomena in nature more interesting than earthquakes, the study of which is called Seismology. Coming, as shocks often will, from a region of volcanoes, the study of these disturbances may enable us to understand something about the nature and working of a volcano. As an earthquake wave travels along from strata to strata, if we study its reflections and changing velocity in transit, we may often be led to the discovery of certain rocky structures buried deep beneath our view, about which, without the help of such waves, it would be hopeless ever to attain any knowledge.