The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1915-11-02
Something You Ought to Know.
ForetelIing an Earthquake.

An earthquake bureau that will
give warning of such calamities as
befell San Francisco ten years ago
and Messina more recently is prom
| Use for the future suggested by Prof.
Charles Dawson in the current issue
of Science Progress in the Twentieth
Century
Thousands of lives were formerly
lost each year through storms that
swept the sea coasts without warn
! ing, but the weather bureau, with its
scientific instruments and by means
of telegraph and wireless, has re-
duced this loss of life to minimum.
| All the resources of science, however,
have so far been of no avail in fore
casting those awful earth commissions
which destroy whole cities and some
times all but wipe out whole popula-
tons,
Just outside San Francisco, in an
open field, stands a set of four stone
pillars, each two facing each other
closely. To the casual passerby, out
for a stroll, they might be the gate
posts to a garden that was never laid
out. But often people living in the
neighborhood have observed the ar
rival of well dressed gentlemen in au-
tomobiles who alight beside the four
posts and go through a singular but
regular procedure. They walk about
the stone pillars, examine them care
fully, and with curious instruments
measure the distances between them.
These parties are composed of uni
versity professors, not only from To-
cal institutions, but from eastern and
foreign colleges as well, all of them
noted biologists. The purpose Of
their periodical pilgrimages to the
four pillars is quite simple, when eX-
planned.
There are two kinds of earth
quakes: those caused by volcanic
eruptions and those caused by the
splitting in two of vast areas of bed
rock, each section sagging in an OPP
p0site direction from the other. 1t is
the latter which causes such vast de-
struction and which comes without
moments warning.
After the San Francisco convul-
,;or a oh oep, Or fcc,,ro yuac diccOy-
cred in the earth, stretching clear
across the city, the split being from
IS to 20 feet in width. 1t was this
split which broke off the water mains
and made it impossible to fight the
fires which followed the shock.
Further investigation showed that
this assure stretched a distance of
600 miles, clear from the Colorado
desert to Cape Mendocino. In some
places it was barely discernible, in
other places it had engulfed whole
houses.
Gradually this assure disappeared,
filled in with earth or loose stones.
But before this had happened Prof,
H. Fielding of the California State
Earthquake commission, had the four
stone pillars erected, each pair on an
opposite side of the assure, at a dis
lance from each other accurately
measured and noted down.
The stone pillars will tell the story
of a further movement of the two
vast sections of the coast that have
split away from each other. The the
DRY is that this movement, like that
of the giant glaciers, is so slow and
gradual as to be imperceptible by
ordinary observation. The faces of
the two sections, touching each 9TH
er, give slowly, but there is steady
bending strain behind each face, as
though two great masses of rubber
were being rubbed against each other
in opposite directions. A little give
there Will be, however. And just
how much will be indicated by the
stone pillars; the distance between
each pair will increase. According
to how this distance grows the SCENT
lists will be able to judge the progress
of the movement, the approximate
growth of the pressure and finally
there will come a day when they will
be able to warn the country that an
other jolt is about to occur. For in
time there will be such a heavy strain
between the two faces pressing past
each other that something must snap.