Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 April 1892 — Earth quake-Proof. [ARTICLE]

Earth quake-Proof.

In all countries where earthquakes are of common < c’urronen tho tut of constructing buildings in such it way as to resist the effect of tho shocks has been studied, and, as always happens, experience has proved the best teacher. An extraordinary opportunity to compare the strength of buildings thus made with others built after the ordinary European fashion was furnished by the terrible earthquake in Japan last October. Professor John Milne, one of the foremost authorities on the subject of earthquakes, studied the effects of this great shook, which destroyed over 40,000 houses, and reports that “in many places so-called ‘foreign’ buildings of brick and stone, Undoubtedly put up in tho flimsiest manner, lie as heaps of ruin between Japanese buildings yet standing.” Some of the Japanese castles and temples escaped, though situated within the district where the shock was most destructive. Professor Milne attributes tms-iri the case of the castles to their pyramidal form and to tlie moats that surround them, and in the case of the temples to tho multiplicity < f joints between the roof and the supporting columns, the effect of which was to produce a “bas-ket-ilko yielding” when the temples were shaken by the earthquake, thus preventing tho breaking of the walls. In some of the Western States where tornadoes occur a similar problem is presented, but so far no method of constructing a house that will enable it to resist the tornado's fury has been invented, and the only alternative has been to dig underground chambers near tho houses, Into which families can flee for safety. Probably a Japanese would consider one of our tornadoes as a thing far more to be dreaded than the earthquake of his native country.