Object Details
- Creator
- Milne, John
- Book Title
- Earthquakes and other earth movements.
- Caption
- Seismometer.
- Educational Notes
- Earthquakes are a force to be reckoned with. They happen when underground rock breaks along a fault line, and energy is released, causing seismic waves that are so powerful they make the ground shake. Because earthquakes have caused so much damage throughout history, earthquakes have been studied since ancient times. The picture shows the first known seismometer, called a gokanjo, from China in AD 136. Its made of a round, copper vessel thats eight feet in diameter with a pillar suspended through the middle. The eight dragons and eight frogs arent just for decoration but are functional parts of the tool. If an earthquake occurs, the bottle shakes, and the ball held in the mouth of the dragon falls into the mouth of the frog below, causing the frog to vibrate. A person would be able to tell which direction an earthquake was coming from by which frog vibrated. This information gave people a little more time to prepare and get to a safe place. Today, modern seismometers, called seismographs, measure the magnitude of earthquakes as they happen and even help predict the probability of future earthquakes before they happen!
- Publication Date
- 1886
- Image ID
- SIL-39088006428759_earthquakesother00miln_0038
- Catalog ID
- 299579
- Rights
- No Copyright - United States
- Type
- Prints
- Publication Place
- New York (N.Y.)
- Publisher
- D. Appleton and company
- See more items in
- See Wonder
- Smithsonian Libraries
- Topic
- Earth Science
- Science
- Geology
- Seismology
- Seismology
- Earthquake
- Natural disaster
- Gokanjo
- Invention
- Ancient Civilization
- Earth
- Frogs
- Language
- English
- Record ID
- silgoi_104046
