Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/476

472 Even athletics are not wanting in this eastern university. The athletic club consists of seven sections—rowing, track athletics, baseball, football, lawn tennis, swimming. Judo (a kind of wrestling), fencing and archery. In the spring, when the rosy cloud of cherry blossoms covers the bank of the River Sumida, the rowing club holds a regatta. In the autumn the athletic section holds a meeting in the recreation ground of the university. Running, jumping, hurdle races, etc., last the whole afternoon, and the scene is as animated as even a Yale-Princeton 'rooter' could wish; the sloping hillside of the arena-like ground is filled with cheering crowds, and the mingling of costumes, colors and gestures add to the animation of the scene. In the matter of supplemental athletics, we may note that swimming is given a conspicuous place; a teacher even takes volunteer students under his charge during the summer vacation.

As a special development in the research work of the university one might briefly mention the laboratory for the study of earthquakes, which occur so frequently, and often, indeed, with dangerous results. And it was with the aim of studying these phenomena, from standpoints both of applied and of pure science, that the seismological observatory was founded in 1880. It has since been in charge of Professors Sekiya and Omoiri. In fact it is due to the researches of these scientists that the horizontal pendulum and the vertical motion seismographs were designed. By means of these delicate instruments it is possible to measure earthquakes and other earth movements of different grades of magnitude, ranging from microscopic tremors and pulsations up to destructive earthquakes. The instruments are so sensitive that an earthquake in England can be recorded in Japan, and from this the rate of traveling of seismic waves has been calculated. There has also been set up recently a horizontal pendulum for continuous registrations. These are an interesting collection, showing the development of seismographs from crude Chinese devices to the most elaborate and modern apparatus.

In the zoological museum there are the splendid collections of the glassy sponges. Hundreds of valuable specimens have been collected through Professor Ijima's constant and earnest exploration of the Sagami Bay. They are so fragile that they might easily be crumbled into pieces by the fisherman's rough hands. One may easily conceive how still is the abyss of 200 fathoms. The first two parts of beautiful monographs have come from the hands of Professor Ijima, who has been working on these delicate creatures for over ten years. Besides this collection, there are hundreds of curious creatures peculiar to Japan, rare specimens which arouse the enthusiasm and possibly even the envy of our foreign confrères. Indeed, every year forms which are new to science come to the museum. In connection with the