Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/95

Rh adhesion of the liquid to the glass shall enable the observer, after some interval of time, to determine the direction of the shock.

In order to obtain some measure of the vertical oscillation of the earth, a weight might be attached to a spiral spring, or a pendulum might be sustained in a horizontal position, and a sliding index be moved by either of them, so that the extreme deviations should be indicated by it. This, however, would not give even the comparative measure accurately, because a difference in the velocity of the rising or falling of the earth's surface would affect the instrument.