Among the other forms of apparatus used to record vertical motion may
be mentioned vessels provided with india-rubber or other flexible
bottoms, and partially filled with water or some other liquid. As the
vessel is moved up and down, the bottom tends to remain behind and
provides a more or less steady point. Pivoted to this is a light index,
which is again pivoted to a rigid frame in connection with the earth.
Instruments of this description have yielded good records.
_Record Receivers._—A large number of earthquake machines having been
referred to, it now remains to consider the apparatus on which they
write their motions. The earlier forms of seismographs, as has already
been indicated, recorded their movements in a bed of sand; others
wrote their records by means of pencils on sheets of paper. Where we
have seismographs which magnify the motion of the earth, it will be
observed that methods like the above would involve great frictional
resistances, tending to cause motion in the assumed steady points of
the seismographs. One of the most perfect instruments would be obtained
by registering photographically the motions of the recording index by
the reflection of a ray of light. Such an instrument would, however,
be difficult to construct and difficult to manipulate. One of the best
practical forms of registering apparatus is one in which the record is
written on a surface of smoked glass. This can afterwards be covered
with a coat of photographer’s varnish, and subsequently photographed by
the ‘blue process’ so well known to engineers.
To obtain a record of all the vibrations of an earthquake it is
necessary that the surface on which the seismograph writes should at
the time of an earthquake be in motion. Of record-receiving machines
there are three types. First, there are those which move continuously.
The common form of these is a circular glass plate like an old form of
chronograph, driven continuously by clockwork. On this the pointers of
the seismograph rest and trace over and over again the same circles.
At the time of an earthquake they move back and forth across the
circles, which are theoretically fine lines, and leave a record of
the earthquake. Instead of a circular plate, a drum covered with
smoked paper may be used, which, after the earthquake, possesses the
advantage, after unrolling, of presenting the record in a straight
line, instead of a record written round the periphery of a circle, as
is the case with the circular glass plates. Such records are easily
preserved, but they are more difficult to photograph.
The second form of apparatus is one which is set in motion at the
time of a shock. This may be a contrivance like one of those just
described, or a straight smoked glass plate on a carriage. By means
of an electrical or a mechanical contrivance called a ‘starter,’ of
which many forms have been contrived, the earthquake is caused to
release a detent and thus set in motion the mechanism which moves the
record receiver.
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