Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1906-05-10

| lessor Kc1d was appointed by the
State Department, as delegate from
the United States to the Information
al chronological Conference held in
Sttasburg, Germany, from July "a
to %, 1908. Delegates were pres
ent by invitation of the German
government from 10 countries, and
an international association was
then formed for cooperative inves-
tigation of earthquake phenomena.
The constitution adopted provides
for general assembly to meet at
least once in four years and a per-
manent commission, composed of
one delegate from each nation,
which will direct the work of the
Association. A central bureau is
located at Strasburg in connection
with the Imperial chronological
Station there, and reports are for
warded to its Director and are pub
lished from time to time.
{ The Association was Joined by
many countries, but the United
States has not yet signified it's in
tention of becoming a member. The
permanent commission or executive
committee of the Association was
organized in Berlin last summer.
! Professor Reid was present a that
meeting also. After his return he
recommended, as he did after his
return from the Strasburg confer
ence, that the United States Join
the Association.
The Director OF the Geological
Survey has recommended in letter
to the Secretary of the Interior,
that the United States accept the
invitation of the German Govern
ment to join the International Seis-
mological Association, provided that
Congr ess shall see fit to make the
necessary appropriation. The total
sum that Congress is called on to
appropriate annually is $1,000,
which includes $500, the fee that
the United States would be required
to contribute to the Association and
$500 for the expenses of the dele
gate. 1t is notlikely that a delegate
from the United States will ever
have anything more important or
more disastrous to report than the
records of the earthquake which
devastated the metropolis of the
Pacific coast.
Among the reports of the United
States Geological Survey published
in the 'nineties'' are eight bulle-
tins on the subject of earthquakes
in California, which contain &C
counts of shocks that occurred dur
ing the ten years from 1889 to
1898, inclusive. Study of these
bulletins shows that there is hardly
a single month in all those ten years
when seismic disturbances, more or
less severe, were not felt along the
Pacific coast.
The first of these bulletins was
written by Professor James Edward
Keller, astronomer in charge of
earthquake observations at the Lick
Observatory. Previous to this Pro-
fessor E. S. Holden had published,
through the California State Print
ing office, paper which contained
a list of the earthquakes that had
occurred in California, Lower Cali
fornia, Oregon and Washington and
which gave all the available data up
to the end of the year 1888. The
next bulletin published by the Geo.
logical Survey was prepared by Pro-
fessor Holden. 1t contained an &C
count of the earthquakes in 1890
and 1891. The other bulletins COW
ering the records for 1892, 1898,
1894, 1898, 1896, 1897, and finally
1898 were published as bulletins
Nos. 112, ia, 1919, 147, 155, and
161, respectively, and all. were pre-
pared by Professor Charles D. Per-
rine, of the Lick Observatory.
The largest and most complete
instrument used for recording earth
quakes on Mount Hamilton, as de-
scribed in these bulletins, records
the north anu south, east ana west,
and vertical components of the
earth's motion separately on a
smoked glass plate, which is start
ed by the preliminary tremors of the
earthquake and rotates uniformly in
about three minutes, the edge of the
plate being graduated into seconds
al the same time by clock, which
also serves to record the time of o. =
lcurrence of the shock. This instru-
ment has been called the Ewing
seismograph. Another simpler form
consists of a heavy duplex" pen
dulum adjusted to long period of
vibration, with magnifying point
er or pen, which records on a smok-