Discovery of the Rebeur-Paschwitz instrument used by Prof. Toshi Shida 100 years ago at Kamigamo Observatory

Luis Rivera (Université de Strasbourg) and I visited Kamigamo Observatory on July 11, 2009. Looking through a pile of junk outside of the observatory, Luis found the remains of the famous Rebeur-Paschwitz instrument. 

This instrument was purchased by the Earthquake Investigation Committee around 1900.It was taken to the Kamigamo observatory of Kyoto Imperial University in 1909 and used by Prof. Shida in his famous observation of the Earth tides. Below is a letter written by Prof. Fusakichi Omori inquiring about the purchase of the instrument in 1896. The Repsold and Soehne Company in Hamburg, Germany constructed the instrument. Below arephotos taken by the company before the instrument was shipped to Japan. The letter and photos are from the Staatsarchiv Hamburg For more about the history of the instrument, see the talk by Takemoto et al. at the 2009 Fall Meeting of the Seismological Society of Japan.

Article in Asahi Newspaper

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