Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 103, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1918 — Earthquake Statistics. [ARTICLE]

Earthquake Statistics.

It has been calculated that there occur about 30,000 earthquakes within a year, or 8,760 hours, hence, that there are on the average three and one-hall earthquakes in an hour. Fortunately, not all earthquakes are of a violent nature, like that of A. D. 526, that killed from 120,000 to 200,000 persons in the region of the Mediterranean, or that of 1693, to which 60,000 persons fell victims in Sicily, or of Lisbon in 1755. and those that devastated Chile, Peru and Japan. Of great frequency are the minor earthquakes. In fact, our so-called firin earth can be said to be in a state of perpetual agitation. Our senses do not perceive the slight disturbances, but the seismograph, a very delicate and ingenious apparatus devised to keep track of them, furnishes all the Information denied to us by our natural Insensibility. They often furnlsh us too much of it in the excess of their zeal, recording sometimes as seismic phenomena vibrations that later proved to have been due to the ringing of church bells.