The Founders of Seismology

Abstract

THE title of this book at once raises the question of what is a founder. For Dr. Davison the answer is simple; he is any one who is no longer living. Yet a different point of view might be adopted, for, if an architectural metaphor is to be used, the history of few branches of knowledge can be divided more readily than seismology into the two periods, of laying, the foundations and of building the superstructure. The limit between the two periods lies in the first decade of the present century, and may be more precisely fixed at the time of the Californiati earthquake of 1906. Subjected to elaborate investigation and a sumptuous publication of results, the increase of knowledge and the precise measurement of effects, which had only been recognised in a qualitative and even uncertain way, was very largely instrumental in inspiring a change in our outlook on the fundamental principles of both the old and the new seismology.

The Founders of Seismology.

By Dr. Charles Davison. Pp. xii + 246. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1927.) 12s. 6d. net.