Abstract
AT. 6.38 a.m. on October 28, I was awakened at my house in Tokio by the long swinging motion of an earthquake. There was no noise of creaking timbers, and there were no shocks such as usually accompany earthquakes. It was an easy swing, which produced dizziness and nausea. As recorded by bracket seismographs this continued for ten or twelve minutes. During the interval there was ample time to study the movements of these instruments, and the conclusion that could not be avoided was that rather than acting as steady points these heavy masses were simply being swung from side to side—horizontal displacement was not being measured, but angles of tip were being recorded. That many of our seismographs are useless as recorders of horizontal motion whenever a vertical component of motion is recorded, is a view that I have held for many years, and therefore when these two have been recorded in conjunction I have been inclined to receive the records with caution.
Article PDF
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
MILNE, J. Seismometry and Engineering in Relation to the Recent Earthquake in Japan . Nature 45, 127 (1891). https://doi.org/10.1038/045127a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/045127a0