Jesuits ’ studies of earthquakes and seismological stations

Abstract: The Jesuits ’ dedication to seismology forms one of their most important scientific contributions. Its history can be divided into two periods. In the first, from the 16th to the 18th century, they studied single earthquakes, some in the newly discovered lands of America, and speculated on the causes of these phenomena. In the second period, beginning in the 19th century, Jesuits established a large number of seismographic stations throughout the world. In North America they founded in 1909 the Jesuit Seismological Association, which ran the first seis-mographic network of continental scale with uniform instrumentation. Jesuit seismographic stations in Africa, Asia and South America were, in many instances, the first installed and, in some cases, were for years the only ones there. Jesuit seismologists have made important contri-butions to a variety of aspects of this science. Among them J. B. Macelwane is widely recognized as an important figure in the history of seismology. The study of earthquakes and the scientific contri-bution to seismology by the Society of Jesus as an institution, through its colleges and universities, and by its members as individual scientists forms an important chapter of the history of this science, especially in the early years of its development. Jesuits ’ recent work in seismology has been described in several short papers (Macelwan