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V.—Note on the Quetta Earthquake of December 20th, 1892

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Charles Davison
Charles Davison
Affiliation:
King Edward's High School, Birmingham.
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Extract

On the morning of December 20, 1892, a severe earthquake was felt in the neighbourhood of Quetta in British Balúchistan. Some of the remarkable effects of this shock have already been described in a paper in “Engineering” for May 19, by Mr. R. W. Egerton, the executive engineer in charge of the Shalabagh division of the North-Western Railway. The present note is founded partly on this paper, and partly on further details contained in letters written by Mr. Egerton to his father, Sir. R. E. Egerton, K.C.I.E. and to myself. It will thus be seen that everything that is of value in this paper is due to Mr. Egerton's careful observations; my own part has simply been to edit these notes and to select from them, those particulars which appear to me of most interest to geologists.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 10 , Issue 8 , August 1893 , pp. 356 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1893

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References

page 356 note 1 My thanks are due to Dr. Lapworth for placing me in communication with Sir Robert Egerton, and to the latter gentleman for the many extracts which he has kindly sent me from his son's letters; also to the publisher of “Engineering” for his courtesy in allowing me to reproduce three of the five illustrations which accompanied Mr. Egerton's paper.

page 357 note 1 Few atlases contain maps of the whole district. A rough sketch-map is given in Chambers's Encyclopædia, vol i., article on “Afghanistan.”

page 357 note 2 CaptainDutton, C. E., The Charleston Earthquake of August 31, 1886;Google Scholar United States Geol. Survey, Ninth Ann. Rep., pp. 283–295.Google Scholar

page 359 note 1 It may be interesting to compare with this Prof. Milne's account of the changes wrought by the great Japanese earthquake of 1891. “The immediate cause of this great disturbance,” he says, “was apparently the formation of a fault which, according to Dr. B. Koto, can be traced on the surface of the earth for a distance of between forty or fifty miles. In the Neo Yalley, where it runs nearly N. and S., it looks like one side of a railway embankment about 20 or 30 feet in height … Not only is there evidence of subsidence along this line, but there are many evidences of horizontal displacement. Lines of roads have been broken, and one part of them thrown to the right or left of their original direction; whilst fields which were rectangular have been cut in two, and one-half relative to the other half been shifted as much as 18 feet up or down the valley. One result of this is that landowners find there has been a partial alteration in the position of their neighbours. A more serious change has been the permanent compression of ground, plots which were 48 feet in length now measuring only 30 feet in length. It appears as if the whole Neo Valley had become narrower. A similar effect is noticeable in the river-beds, where the piers of bridges are left closer together than they were at the time of their construction.”—Brit. Asso. Rep. 1892, pp. 116, 117.Google Scholar