MALLET, Robert.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

First [- Fourth] Report on the Facts of Earthquake Phenomena. First editions, journal issues, of these foundation works of seismology, "the first really scientific investigation" on the topic (Davison, p. 81); an association set, from the library of William Cole, 3rd Earl of Enniskillen, an Irish palaeontologist who worked closely with Mallet. Also present are the first appearances of significant papers by Robert Angus Smith, announcing the discovery of acid rain, and Hugh Cleghorn, reporting on the dangers of tropical deforestation and its affect on climate.The Irish civil engineer and scientist Robert Mallet (1810-1881) is often referred to as the father of seismology, not least for having coined the word, alongside other key terminology like epicentre, seismic focus, angle of emergence, isoseismal line, and meizoseismal area. At the beginning of his earthquake studies "[Mallet] produced an experimental seismograph in 1846. Important elements of his model, which was never actually used, were incorporated in the seismograph that Luigi Palmieri made in 1855. Between 1850 and 1861 Mallet set off explosions in different locations to determine the rate of travel of seismic waves in sand (825 feet per second), solid granite (1,665 feet per second) and quartzite (1,162 feet per second)... Mallet presented his most important seismic results in four Report[s] to the British Association (1850, 1851, 1852-54, 1858)", the organisation which funded the majority of his research (DSB). In

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