Science: Quakes & Prophet

“It has, however, to be said,” observed Professor Helmut Landsberg of Penn State’s School of Mineral Industries, writing in Science last week, “that our present knowledge … of earthquakes does not permit any prediction of location and time of occurrence of a major earthquake with scientific precision.” Meanwhile major quakes were occurring here & there over the globe and in Manhattan a young Jew named Reuben Greenspan seemed to be doing an astonishingly good job of calling them before they happened.

In general, there are two approaches to the problem of predicting seismic disturbances. One is by observing certain phenomena which have been found to precede them. These are slight tiltings of the ground, as detected in Japan by Inouye and Sugiyama; changes in the force of gravity, as reported from Germany by Tomaschek and Schaffernicht; and disturbances of electromagnetic radiation, as observed by Italy’s Piatti. No successful forecast has resulted from any of these observations. The other approach is to take cognizance of possible contributing causes of quakes, such as the tidal pulls on Earth of heavenly bodies. Herbert Janvrin Browne, a heterodox Washington long-range weather forecaster, thinks the high frequency of quakes this year may be related to the fact that 1935 will have seven lunar and solar eclipses, the maximum possible number.

The tidal theory is behind the method worked out by Reuben Greenspan. Last month he told a newshawk that a conjunction of the moon and the planet Jupiter seemed to indicate earth disturbances “in islands northeast of Australia” for July 11 and 12. Early last week he wrote letters to newspapers repeating this prophecy. When July 10 came round Krakatoa, a volcanic island with a dreadful record, between Java and Sumatra, suddenly started erupting at two-minute intervals, hurling lava spume a half-mile above the rim.* When he heard of this Prophet Greenspan cried: “Gosh, that’s wonderful!”

Next day, July 11, Japan suffered one of the worst quakes in a decade. In the tea and orange district of Shizuoka, 100 miles southwest of Tokyo, nine persons were killed, 101 injured, 125 houses destroyed. Mr. Greenspan had predicted other temblors “in Turkey, Italy and around the Mediterranean” to take place on or before July 14. In that case he seemed to be shooting all around the mark because minor temblors actually occurred on July 13 in Rumania and Bulgaria.

Reuben Greenspan seemed really to have got the range when he predicted sharp shocks on the shaky west coast of South America for July 12. On July 12 a quake rocked Trujillo, Peru, and in Copiapoó, Chile, the earth trembled 64 times. Said Dr. George Clyde Fisher, curator of astronomy at Manhattan’s American Museum of Natural History: “There seems to be considerable scientific basis for this young man’s theory. Certainly the matter deserves to be investigated.” By this time the methodical New York Times was so interested that it dug up a half-dozen other examples of Greenspan forecasting accuracy, including the catastrophic quake which destroyed Quetta, India, snuffed out 56,000 lives (TIME, June 10). Early this week the full moon turned a dim copper color when it swung into Earth’s shadow—first total lunar eclipse generally visible in the U. S. since 1927. Last week, making a radio talk and flustered by so much attention, Reuben Greenspan predicted that on the day of the eclipse the South American quakes would recur and others take place in China. India, the Philippines. On the day before the eclipse, a sharp shock lasting 15 sec. shook desolate Quetta.

Reuben Greenspan was born 31 years ago in Evanston, Ill. His father owned a fleet of fishing vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. Precocious, Reuben graduated from Armour Institute of Technology at 18, went to sea, studied the tides, became a navigating officer with unlimited license. Last autumn he left the Panama Pacific Line to teach nautical astronomy and navigation mathematics at Seamen’s Church Institute. Last week he moved into a two-room Greenwich Village flat with his bride, who teachers piano. Said Miriam Greenspan: “Reuben is an unsung genius. Of course, I’m sorry for those poor people that are dead, but if they will only listen to Reuben in the futuer they may save a great many lives. When I think of the great scientists who have their million-dollar laboratories while Reuben toils away with only a few charts and instruments, almost junk in comparison, it just burns me up!”

*In August 1883, an explosion in Krakatoa blew away two-thirds of the island, sent out tidal waves that drowned 36,000 inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago. The boom was heard 3,000 miles away and the atmospheric concussion was recorded as having gone seven times around the earth. For months the sky as far away as England was dimmed by dust.