EARTHQUAKES IN JAPAN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19039, 8 December 1923, Page 8

EARTHQUAKES IN JAPAN.

According to a message from Tokio prophecies of further great earthquakes in Japan, by noted scientists as well as by self-proclaimed seers, ■ are causing a considerable amount of disquiet among the populace. The record of earthquakes in Japan, dating hack as it does to legendary times, has been such that the prophets would seem to run little risk of loss of reputation in their prediction of further seismic disturbances. The “ selfproclaimed seers ” might be dealt with by the authorities as a public nuisance, mex-e birds of ill-omen, playing upon the fears and credulity of their fellows, but ah announcement by Dr Omomura, of the Mitigata Meteorological Observatory, is on another footing. Dr Oranmura has committed himself to the statement that a great disturbance may be expected within the next twenty veal's in North-western Japan, in a region which was devastated by a great earthquake in the past century. If this bo somewhat indefinite in point of date, as the best that the seismologist can do in reading the signs it is doubtless better than nothing, and may-serve a useful warning. So far as the scientist is able, to see in such a matter he must feel it his' duty to make p'rognostica-

tiou. As a field for the study of seismology Japau should be almost unrivalled. The fact that from no -watchful observatory beacon came warning of what was in store for Tokio and Yokohama on the first day of September last is likely to be cited as an unfortunate commentary upon the value of even scientific predictions in relation to earthquakes. Experience is a hard teacher. Perhaps there is room for hope that the seismologist will yet sufficiently conquer the mysteries pertaining to his particular field to be able to foresee with some exactitude the appearance of those phenomena of which he is the trained observer. When his wisdom prior to the event approaches that which he is recognised to possess after the event, certain parts of the world— Japan, in particular—should be somewhat safer places to dwell in. In an interesting article in the Nineteenth Century Professor J. H. Longford, formerly British Consul at Nagasaki, pictures the changes that fifty years have brought about in the great cities of Japan, Formerly, so it was said, it was the habit of every Japanese householder so to arrange his affairs that he could anticipate having hia house destroyed by either fire or earthquake once in every seven years. When the time came, with one gentle"'protest, “Shikata ga nai” (“There is no help for it ”), he set about the restoration of his house and business. The transformation that has been brought about in keeping with the progress of Japan in- all the elements of Western civilisation has introduced a somewhat different state of affairs,, thus referred to by Professor Longford:—

Fires are not so wide-spreading: the old narrow streets have been widened; great mains provide an abundant supply of water for most efficient brigades; but earthquakes are still destructive, and the imposing brick or steel-frame buildings, carefully designed to resist earth vibrations, have proved less trustworthy thanthe wooden structures of conservative native builders, The ruin in the last groat calamity seems to have been nearly complete. • Fire has in all days been a dreaded follower of earthquake, but it has now assumed a new form in consequence of the bursting of gas mains and oil tanks, which were unknown in Old Japaft. West-' orn civilisation,- in both its moral and physical aspects, has made Japan,free, powerful, and wealthy, but it sometimes exacts a heavy price. No earthquake has taken such toll, both in life and property, as this has done, and fire in its new form has played a terrible part. The inference is permitted that in a sense Japan has more reason than ever to dread the results of earthquakes. She has more to lose; —it is difficult for her to meet such disasters in the old philosophic way and it is likely to become .increasingly difficult. This year’s experience has been for her a terrible object-lesson. During the first seventy years of. the nineteenth century there was on. the. average one serious disturbance in. Japan every five years. To earthquakes of a slight character the Japanese should be more inured than any other people on earth.' The late Professor Milne, the brilliant pioneer of modem seismological science, recorded 8331 earthquakes in their country between 1885 and 1892, an average of more than a 'thousand a year. But in the case of siich disturbances the difference in the degree of severity is, of course, of enormous moment. The Japanese would be a race of stoics indeed were they unaffected, especially with their present task in. hand, by predictions - concerning what the future has in store. The historian Bnckle indulged in a good deal of philosophic speculation regarding the psychological and physical influence of earthquakes, upon the inhabitants of those countries in Europe and America, in which they are most frequent.' It is likely that, had, he known' Japan and the Japanese people, he would have found valuable material for the enrichment of . the theory which he laid down respecting the effect of the sense of inferiority felt by man—-in the consciousness of his own insignificance—when brought into contact with natural phenomena that inspire sensations of terror or great wonder, or excite in the mind an idea of the vague and uncontrollable..