Electric Earth?
“Science does not know its debt to imagination.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson
I was browsing through the book, “Short System of Polite Learning,” by Daniel Jaudon (Edition 7. Published by Benj. Warner, 1820), at Google Books. It seems to be an FAQ about various subjects. Published in 1820, some of the science is rather outdated. The following excerpt struck me as amusing:
“OF EARTHQUAKES.
Q. What is an earthquake?
A. A tremendous agitation of some considerable part of the earth, attended with a noise like thunder; and frequently with an eruption of wind or smoke, water or fire. It is, undoubtedly, the greatest and most formidable phenomenon of nature.
Q. Whence, the cause of these terrible phenomena?
A. Those of a superficial kind may have an electric origin: for, when a part of the earth is in a highly electrified state, the approach of a non-electric cloud will produce a sudden discharge, and occasion a violent commotion in the earth, many miles in compass. The principal agent of those that are interior and more tremendous, is subterraneous fire.“
In comparison, the folks at wordnetweb.princeton.edu define an earthquake as “shaking and vibration at the surface of the earth resulting from underground movement along a fault plane of from volcanic activity.”
That makes a little more sense.
