EARTHQUAKES AND WEATHER

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21416, 7 March 1935, Page 12

EARTHQUAKES AND WEATHER

❖ NO CONNEXION OLD BELIEF REMAINS UNPROVED Earthquake weather is a myth, according to Mr H. F. Baird, of the Christchurch Magnetic Observatory, who in an address to the Philosophical Society of Canterbury last evening said that the belief had never once been substantiated. Mr Baird said that most probably the effects of a volcanic disturbance had been mistaken for the causes, and so had led to the misapprehension during many years. "It is a widely held belief that certain types of oppressive weather precede earthquakes," said Mr Baird. "This belief has been current for more than 2000 years now, but no claim has ever been verified Earthquakes have followed all conceivable types of weather. The New Zealand earthquake of 1855 was accompanied by a nor'-west gale. In Tokyo in 1923 the disaster was made much worse because it was accompanied by winds of hurricane force." The belief was largely traceable to conditions during and after many volcanic eruptions, Mr Baird said. The ancients did not separate volcanic eruptions from earthquakes, as must be done to-day. Earthquakes associated with volcanic activity were shallow, and disturbed only a small area of country but one of the main horrors of volcanic eruptions was that so much energy was thrown into the air from and round the crater, and to the atmosphere the ancients looked for the most alarming phenomena. After so nerve-shattering an experience, everyone became interested in accompanying phenomena, and there was a tendency for all but the most dispassionate observers ';o ascribe properties of subsequent happenings to preceding conditions.

After the main shock there were nearly always minor shocks, very much smaller, but it was almost impossible to make the inhabitants of an affected region believe this.