PREDICTING QUAKES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 247, 16 July 1935, Page 9

PREDICTING QUAKES

Successes of American

Seismologist

THEORY 7 AS TO CAUSES

idy Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright,

New York, July 13.

“On July 16 there will be earthquakes in South America, the United States, on the Pacific ‘Coast, in Southern China' and in Eastern India.” This prediction was voiced by Reuben Greenspan, a young teacher of mathematics and navigation, and in his spare time a geophysicist and seismologist. Recently .Mr. Greenspan has been astoundingly accurate in telling when and where earthquakes are going to occur. .Months ago he sent notices to the Press that an earthquake would occur in India on May 31 and June 1, but when Quetta was destroyed and 56,000 lives were lost everyone had forgotten the prediction. Editors began to pay attention when days ahead he predicted the earthquakes in Mexico City on June 29, in Turkey on June 30. and in Batavia and Japan. Mr. Greenspan believes that earthquakes are caused when the moon is in alignment with the sun or when Mercury, Venus, .Mars and other planets are over areas' which are known to have faults and fissures. The study of their positions and of the tides gives him the data required for his predictions. He claims to have kept a record of 200 predictions in the past few years of which 87 per cent, are accurate. The 13 per cent, of cases where the date of occurrence was wrong usually involved minor disturbances. THOUGHT IMPROBABLE Reliable Predictions NEW ZEALANDER’S VIEW By Telegraph.—Press' Association Dannevlrke, July 15. Asked to comment on the cablegram received to-day in which forecasts are made for earthquakes on July 16, Dr. Lyndon Bastings, Dannevlrke, an authority on seismology, remarked that there were so many earthquakes every day that a general prediction a 99 per cent, chance of being proved correct. Earthquakes throughout the world last year numbered several thousands.

“It is noticeable,” said Dr. Bastings, “that Mr. Greenspan does not predict the intensity of the earthquakes so far as may be gathered from the cabled message.” Minor shocks were frequent almost everywhere, and to say merely that an earthquake would occur in a certain place on a certain date was a prediction that had quite as much chance of being true as of being false. Referring to Mr. Greenspan’s method of forecasting, Dr. Bastings said it was probable that the position of the sun, moon, and planets did at. times exercise an infltienee upon the time of occurrence of an earthquake, but there were so many other factors, most of which were nt present, unknown, that the chances of reliable prediction solely on the basis stated were extremely improbable. Mr. Greenspan was not known in the scientific world.

Some time ago a number of predictions on a similar basis were made by .two New Zealanders. Mr de Montalk, of Wellington, had published in an American seismological journal a rejoinder showing that most of the predictions were very accurate in liotu time and place. Tlie men had missed more than they bad predicted, aiid this illustrated tlie futility of predicting an occasional earthquake. It was inadvisable, Dr. Bastings added, to create scares by publishing in the.popular Press earthquake forecasts based on evidence that certainly had not been accepted by the scientific world.