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DEATH OF DR. J. MILNE            

FAMOUS EARTHQUAKE AUTHORITY LONDON, July 31.        

The death is announced of Dr. John Milne, F.R.S., F.G.S., the famous mining engineer and seismologist, at the age of 63 years.

Dr. Milne was born in Liverpool on December 30, 1850 ; his father was John Milne, of Milnow and his mother Emma Twycross, daughter of James Twycross,   of Wokingham. He was educated in Rockdale ; at the Collegiate College, Liver- pool ; King's College, London, and at the School of Mines. He was a fellow of many learned societies in England, and an hono- rary or corresponding member of several in Europe, and in 1877 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. For services ren- dered to the Japanese Government in 1895 he received the Third-class Order of the Rising Sun. After working with mining     engineers in Cornwall and Lancashire, he went to the Mining School in Freiberg, from which he visited mining districts in Central Europe. On behalf of Cyrus Field, Sir James Anderson, and others, two sum- mers were occupied in collecting informa- tion respecting the mineral resources in Newfoundland. Labrador was visited, and from Funk Island Mr. Milne took to Eng- land one of the largest collections of skele- tons of the Great Auk which have hitherto been made. In 1874 he joined Dr. Beke's expedition to North-West Arabia, the ob- jects of which were the rectification of cer- tain points in Biblical geography, and the determination of the site of Mount Sinai. ln 1875 he was engaged, as mining engineer and geologist by the Japanese Government. After travelling slowly across Russian Siberia, Mongolia, and 1000 miles of China, visiting mines on the journey, be reached Japan in 1876. He gave great attention   to the study of earthquakes and volcanoes, the outcomes from which have been nume- rous. In Japan a Seismological Society was established, which issued 20 volumes in English. His seismological survey of Japan embraced 968 stations. A Chair of Seis- mology was founded at the Imperial Uni- versity of that country, a bureau to- con- trol some 968 earthquake-observating sta- tions, and a Government committee for the investigation of earthquake and volcanic phenomena. One practical result of this work has been to establish rules and for- mula in connection with building construc- tion, the objects of which are to mitigate the effects of earthquakes, and these have been adopted in Japan and other countries. It having been established that the vibra- tions resulting from a large earthquake originating in any one portion of our globe can be recorded at any other portion. Mr. Milne, as a Secretary of a British Associa- tion committee, secured the erection at various points around the globe of the necessary instruments for these observa- tions. In the Isle of Wight he recorded about 70 earthquakes every year, some of which occurred near Japan. This seismo- logical investigation is throwing light upon the physical character of the interior of our globe. By it the foci of submarine dis- turbances which sometimes interfere with telegraph cables, are located, and generally it promises to add greatly to our knowledge of the globe we live on. He designed seismographs and instruments to record vibrations on railways, and published the following works :— "Earthquakes," 1883 ;   "Seismology," 1888 ; "The Miner's Hand- book," 1894 ; "Crystallography," and hun- dreds of papers on seismology, geology, mineralogy, mining (transactions of the Seismological Society, British Association reports, transactions of the Royal Society). In addition to the countries mentioned, Dr. Milne has visited Iceland, South China the Kuriel Islands, North Korea, Manila, Borneo, Australia, Tasmania, New Zea- land, and parts of the United States and Canada.  

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