“RASH PREDICTIONS”

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10305, 14 January 1927, Page 7

“RASH PREDICTIONS”

.V PROPHECY OF DESTRUCTION

DR ADAMS’ COMMON-SENSE REPLY. The remarkable and somewhat disastrous prophecy cabled from Rome contained the "prediction that this year would be marked by destructive earth paroxysms. It has received a very logical and commonsense reply from Dr. C. E. Adams, Government Astronomer. Jn the cable 'mentioned Professor Bendandi, described as a noted seismologist in Italy, declared that about January 13th violent earthquakes would shake Europe, Asia, and Polynesia, and in February the seismic fever would intensify. gradually spreading to other countries which the great seismologist mentions. SUDDEN RELEASE. “There does not appear the slightest indication to justify such a rash statement as that," said Dr. Adams. He qualified this by. emphasising the difficulty— impossibility—o«; making any propliecy of what was going to happen. “We simply record what takes* place,” he went on. “1 have been back through the records and endeavoured to find whether, in the event of previous earthquakes,, there has been anything to show the' cause why it should have been anticipated, but in no place could I find anything. This seems to be the right and proper thing, for an earthquake is the sudden release of a gradually accumulated strain, and it is quite right to suppose that once the strain gives—the strain which has been accumulating almost imperceptiblyit will be released at a certain time. ' PROPHECY VALUELESS. Dr. Adams recalled the prophecy which was made by the late hr. O’Mo r ley of Japan, in 1922, after the disastrous earthquake there in that year. Because the country had suffered a severe earthquake at that time, he had said Japan would be immune from further shocks. He went to Australia, and was there in 1923 when Japan was shaken by the most disastrous ’quake in its history. This disposed of any attempts at accurate prediction in this direction. O’Morley was a careful and eminently systematic seismologist. But even he did not make such a conclusive and secure prediction as the cabled message from Rome. He believed he was correct in assuming that the strain had been released in certain districts, and that it would take a very long, time for it to accumulate again; and indeed on those grounds it seemed thilt Japan would be free from shocks for many years from that time. NOT COMMONSENSE. But there was not a man living who could accurately say whether any earthquake had sufficiently relieved the strain sufficiency to prevent other shocks. There might he several factors contributing to the strain as in the case of an overstrained beam in a building—but only one thing could cause its relief, and that was overstrain. When this came,. it came suddenly, and without warning. There could be no scientific justification for the wild screed which had appeared in the cable, for it could hear no commonsense _ examination. The work of seismologists here at the present time did not indicate that anything startling was going to iiapPe “"l do not know the professor who is mentioned as having made tins prophecy,” went on Dr. Adams, but we are not in touch to any great extent with Italian seismologists. Our policy in all these matters -s to see that ‘the foundations for the carnage of the great strain I have mentioned qre sound, and not to waste tmo in prophecies.