EARTHQUAKES IN 1923

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 88, 10 January 1923, Page 5

EARTHQUAKES IN 1923

A FRENCH SCIENTIST’S PREDICTION.

The Abbe Moreux,. Director of Bourges Observatory, in an article ih regard to the recent earthquakes, predicts new upheavals for the coining year (states the London “Morning Post’s” Paris correspondent). One of the most seriously affected earthquake regions in the world, he says, is the famous mediterranean depression which surrounds the globe at the point oF separation between the ancient African and Eurasian continents on the one hand and North and South America on the other. It is now known ,he says, that earthquakes are more or less continually occurring, tlio seismographs regißtering on an average thirty thousand of these movements of the earth every year. The majority of the shocks occur during the colder season, and then more often in the night than during tho day, and in tho morning more frequently than in tho evening. These facts have led this well-smown astronomer to conduct researches sirxo 1902 as to whether the sun has not an effective action in the internal economy of the globe, as it. has on its atmosphere. His conclusion is that atmospheric electricity serves as an intermediary between the sun and earthquakes. or rather —which comes to the same thing—between solar phenomena and contractions of tho terrestrial globe, Earthquakes are most numerous, he asserts, in the periods of exceptional solar calm which recur every eleven years. Now tho maximum of solar activity, according to Abbe Moreux’s observations, was registered in 1917 t therefore ho predicts that it will be at its minimum in 1923, which should therefore be marked by on increased number of earthquakes. Ihe series, he insists, has already begun, and in a little while shocks may be expected to be reported from Japan, the West Indies, and perhaps Mexico and Turkestan. With the exception of tho Provencal district. France, he believes, mav expect to escape, as it is normally largely free from phenomena of this kind. '