RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 112, 5 February 1931, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL

(By

Kickshaws.)

We have had a bad earthquake. Citizens of New Zealand have been forced to watch two flourishing towns obliterated in a bare two and a half minutes. Streets have disappeared in the smother of fallen masonry. Hospitals have collapsed. Even the harbour bed has been raised. Doctors have been rushed to the stricken area. The roads are carrying succour to those who have so suddenly found themselves homeless. Subscription lists are being opened. In fact, the whole Dominion is moved as it has seldom been moved before at the plight of its fellows. At the risk of emulating a job’s comforter, perhaps, one may remark that things are never so bad but they might not be worse. It is the same with earthquakes!

The number killed in a few minutes in. some earthquakes is appalling. In the earthquake of 1755, 50,000 souls were ‘swept into eternity in one short minute and a half. In the Messina...earthquake 23 years ago 100,000 persons were killed. Eleven years ago certain districts of China mourned. 180,000 dead from an earthquake. One of the highest recorded death., rates took place in India in 1737, when .300,000 were estimated to have been killed. One may say, perhaps correctly, that old-time figures are incorrect, that they exaggerate the truth. Nevertheless, authentic figures of the Japanese earthquake of 1923 show that 99,331 persons were killed, 103,733 were injured, and 43,476 were missing. On a percentage basis per number of inhabitants per town this Japanese disaster works out as 5i per cent for Yokohama alone. For really staggering percentage losses one must go to Italy. In the earthquake of 1883 one town lost 41 per cent of its population in, a brief moment of time. Messina lost 50 per cent of its souls in the shake of 1908. In 1857 another town lost 71 per cent While in the, earthquake that ushered in the Great War two neighbouring Italian towns had only 9 per cent and 6 per cent ’of their citizens alive after the earthquake had come .and gone. On the .other hand, in Great Britain, ever since records were kept, only one life has been lost as a result of an earthquake. A brick fell on an apprentice in the shake of 1580 and killed' him. ‘; A refugee from the Napier district remi that he knew an earthquake was coming from the behaviour of his dog. Anybody who has ever . lived near a zoo in an earthquake district will confirm this sixth earthquake sense given to animals and denied to most human beings. Pheasants make a great noise just before an earthquake. Other birds show symptoms of impending danger. Many of the other larger animals in a zoo become obviously frightened and slinky i some minutes, or even hours, .before the arrival of a tremor. Only a few human beings have this curious' earthijuake instinct Those that have been , asked what it feels like say that .they knew a shake was coming, but why they knew they cg.nnot explain. , » * While our modern seismographs are so delicate that our recent shock almost broke the Sydney, instrument, there does seem to be certain preliminary phenomena connected with, an earthquake which no instrument. is capable of recording. The curious biological effect upon animals is thus all the more interesting,, for it comes at a moment when a district, although on the brink of destruction, cannot be warned by even the inost delicate and. costly instruments conceived •by the brain of man. * * It is well known that both dogs and foxes show considerable restlessness some time before a shock comes. Quite definite mental disturbances seem to take place in the animal concerned. Some dogs become aggressive prior to an earthquake, others become unusually docile. Cats also seem to apprehend some vague portent of a coming earthquake. Usually this takes the form of almost unbearable caterwaulding, with an inteiisity not indulged in at night on the garden fence. The curious mental effect of an impending earthquake has been known to make a hitherto untamable cat so tame that it rubbed itself, purring, against the legs of complete strangers. In at least one case a cat has been known to fetch her young ones as if asking for human help in the coming shock. *♦ * - Poachers declare that hares and ral> bits, just before a bad earthquake, b» come so tame they show no fear a< all to human beings and allow themselves to be picked up from the ground. The effect of earthquakes upon th« lower animals is well known among the natives of the Sunday Islands. After a severe earthquake they always throw away the eggs from under < brooding hen. They declare, .appan entlv correctly, that the tension in thl air before the shake inevitably kills the chickens inside the eggs. » 1 * * In the jungle crocodiles suddenly become possessed of voice. They desert their usual haunts before the shake takes place and go roaring Into the jungle for refuge. Surely a silly thing to do with the possibility of tree falling all round. Snakes are said to desert a house befo- .• an earthquake takes place. Bees also are reputed to be extremely sensitive to the arrival of an earthquake. Long before the shock comes along they leave their hives in great excitement and refuse to return until the shocks are over. What then is the cause this premonition among certain mals? Is there a sixth sense and, ft so, can humanity possess itself ot rtie secret that will forwara against «»• aster? * j The more one studies learned upon the cause of earthquakes the more one is forced to the conclusion that nobody really knows what causes them. There is much talk abont tectonic folds, about faults and other things with names so long it is Quito Impossible to understand thdr meanings. Underneath all the discourse, however, remains the fact that nobody seems to know why we have faults and why the earth’s hard crust should suddenly jump-about as if the_ god. had hit it with a large and heavy mauL It is believed that under this hand crust, which is a mere cigarette paper thickness compared to the rest of the world, there is a plastic la ?“- ebb and flow in this layer after the manner of the tides set up in the by the sun and the moon. The Is strained by the heavings of the tide. One day some weak part of it way deep down where “an been. Then the surface trembles and buildings fall flat