When Geology Encounters a Real Catastrophe
53
beaucoup plus longues. Si celle-ci avoit duré quelques minutes toute
la ville auroit été abîmée”.
51 This desire for accuracy, however, did not
prevent certain witnesses from advancing exaggerated claims of ten
minutes and more for the duration of the tremors.
The procedure for observing seismic activity spread remarkably quickly. The first group to be affected by this comprised provincial academicians and their official and unofficial correspondents. The
documents collected by the Académie des sciences demonstrate, however, that these observational procedures were also taken up by social
groups much more diverse in character than the usual correspondents
of academicians. At the time of the seismic activity of 1755-1756, and
thereafter, numerous individuals recorded observations and presented
them to scientific bodies. Considering the whole of Philippe Buache’s
files, we find in no particular order correspondence from a Cordelier
nun from the convent of Saint-Florent-le-Vieil in Maine-et-Loire, an
auxiliary engineer of the highways department, an infantry lieutenant,
another engineer from Quebec, provincial academicians and their correspondents, Carthusian monks, Cordelier monks from Salins, an adolescent aged between fifteen and sixteen with only basic literacy, a
physician and correspondent of the Académie des sciences, a member
of the Portuguese oratory, a Jesuit, a merchant from Martinique, a
mining franchisee, and a factory inspector from the Saint-Gobain
glassworks.
52 Equally, among the participants in the Académie de
Rouen’s 1756 essay competition, there were a cleric from the Evreux
chapter, a Breton country squire, an architect from Mamers, and the
royal prosecutor of Azay-le-Rideau.
53
Unjustly neglected, the physics debate over earthquakes ought
to be regarded as one of the first popular debates of Enlightenment
science, raging just as fiercely, if not more so, than the ballooning
mania of the 1780s. Neither were the lower orders excluded from this
geological craze, even in the countryside. In 1778 in Le Mans, a
marvellous “mécanique de figures mouvantes qui montre la ville
d’Orléans assiégée par les Anglais et délivrée par ‘Jeanne d’Arque’ et
___________________________
51 Académie Royale des Sciences, Registre des Procès-verbaux des séances, 4 août
1756, vol. 75, fol. 455-56.
52 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. n.a.fr. 20236 et 20237.
53 Bibliothèque municipale de Rouen, fonds de l’Académie, MS C 20, “Concours de
1756”.
53
beaucoup plus longues. Si celle-ci avoit duré quelques minutes toute
la ville auroit été abîmée”.
51 This desire for accuracy, however, did not
prevent certain witnesses from advancing exaggerated claims of ten
minutes and more for the duration of the tremors.
The procedure for observing seismic activity spread remarkably quickly. The first group to be affected by this comprised provincial academicians and their official and unofficial correspondents. The
documents collected by the Académie des sciences demonstrate, however, that these observational procedures were also taken up by social
groups much more diverse in character than the usual correspondents
of academicians. At the time of the seismic activity of 1755-1756, and
thereafter, numerous individuals recorded observations and presented
them to scientific bodies. Considering the whole of Philippe Buache’s
files, we find in no particular order correspondence from a Cordelier
nun from the convent of Saint-Florent-le-Vieil in Maine-et-Loire, an
auxiliary engineer of the highways department, an infantry lieutenant,
another engineer from Quebec, provincial academicians and their correspondents, Carthusian monks, Cordelier monks from Salins, an adolescent aged between fifteen and sixteen with only basic literacy, a
physician and correspondent of the Académie des sciences, a member
of the Portuguese oratory, a Jesuit, a merchant from Martinique, a
mining franchisee, and a factory inspector from the Saint-Gobain
glassworks.
52 Equally, among the participants in the Académie de
Rouen’s 1756 essay competition, there were a cleric from the Evreux
chapter, a Breton country squire, an architect from Mamers, and the
royal prosecutor of Azay-le-Rideau.
53
Unjustly neglected, the physics debate over earthquakes ought
to be regarded as one of the first popular debates of Enlightenment
science, raging just as fiercely, if not more so, than the ballooning
mania of the 1780s. Neither were the lower orders excluded from this
geological craze, even in the countryside. In 1778 in Le Mans, a
marvellous “mécanique de figures mouvantes qui montre la ville
d’Orléans assiégée par les Anglais et délivrée par ‘Jeanne d’Arque’ et
___________________________
51 Académie Royale des Sciences, Registre des Procès-verbaux des séances, 4 août
1756, vol. 75, fol. 455-56.
52 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. n.a.fr. 20236 et 20237.
53 Bibliothèque municipale de Rouen, fonds de l’Académie, MS C 20, “Concours de
1756”.