69
Frequent earthquakes throughout the 8 provinces surrounding Yedo, which were also felt at Kioto and in the Islands of Sikok and Kiusiu. The earth was not quiet for one year—in the year 1854.
The most recent which has happened was most severely felt at Yedo, where the trembling of the earth continued for one month and gave 80 severe shocks. Many houses were knocked down, their timbers took fire and conflagrations commenced at 45 different places. About 120,000 lives were supposed to have been lost. This occurred in the year 1855.
Those parts of Japan most subject to earthquakes are, strange to say, the vicinities of the two capitals. Thus out of the 43 severe earthquakes which have taken place during the last 600 years, 9 have occurred at Kioto and 13 at Yedo. The province of Echingo is next in numbers and has had four earthquakes. Yezo has been visited twice, as also Diwa and the neighbourhood of Fusiyama—while Nagasaki, Sado, Sendai, &c. have only suffered from one disturbance.
But, while the country, as is abundantly shewn above, is liable to very severe and an increasing number of earthquakes, the system of construction in the buildings has not been well devised to withstand such visitations. The more solidity and weight in a building and the greater its inertia, the less liable it is to derangement from a sudden movement of its foundations; but, at the same time, it is essential that the strength and connection of the materials in the walls should be proportionate to their weight and mass. As a general principle preference should be given, both on account of durability and stability, to the adhesion of bricks or stone and mortar in a solid well built wall, over ordinary wooden buildings. It might be that a wooden erection could be constructed with its frame work so tied and braced together as to render it almost perfectly secure against any earthquake, short of an upheaval or breach in the surface of the earth; but this would be an expensive, thriftless and impracticable style of construction. Whereas on the other hand, a stone
