’QUAKE FORECASTS

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 159, 15 July 1935, Page 5

’QUAKE FORECASTS

Under Some Criticism BY A DANNEVIRKE AUTHORITY “INADVISABLE CREATE SCARES’’ (Per Press Association) DANNEVIRKE, This Day. Asked to comment on a recent cable as to an earthquake, Dr. Lyndon Bastings, a Dannevirke authority on seismology’, remarked that there were so many earthquakes every day that a general prediction had a 99 per cent, chance of being proved correct. Earthquakes throughout the world last year numbered several thousands. It was noticeable,, said Dr. Bastings that Mr. Greenspan does not predict the intensity of earthquakes. So far as may be gathered from the cabled message minor shocks were frequent almost everywhere, and to say merely that a,n 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 other planets, did at times exercise an influence upon the time of the occurrence of an earthquake, but there were so many other factors, the most of which at present were unknown, that the chances of a reliable prediction solely bn the basis stated were extremely improbable. Mr. Greenspan was unknown in the scientific world. Some time ago a number of predictions on a similar basis had been made by two New Zealanders, said Dr. Bastings. Mr. Ds Montauk, of Wellington, had published in an American seismological journal a rejoinder showing that most of the predictions were very inaccurate in both time and place. The men had missed more than they had predicted, which illustrated the futility of predicting an occasional earthquake. Dr. Bastings said it was inadvisable to create scares by publishing in the popular press earthquake forecasts based on evidence that certainly had not been accepted by the scientific world.