HOWRAH: India’s oldest seismograph lies “buried” within an harmless one-storey development, which now functions as a canteen at one of the nation’s oldest engineering colleges — the Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology, Shibur.
The earthquake measuring software—an original Benioff seismograph-meter —used to be built through Victor Hugo Benioff, the daddy of earthquake design tools. Installed in the 1930s on the ‘place of business of the institute’s engineer’, this software used to be a number of the first few built through Benioff and sent to the then Bengal Engineering College.
This development, which lay unused with its forgotten piece of history, made manner for a canteen after the authorities made up our minds to “utilise the distance higher”. A different flooring has been added over the garage area of the defunct system to stay it hidden from public eye.
A small door on the flooring of the canteen takes you down a steep, rusted makeshift iron ladder to the seismometer. The 13-part system lies there in a pitiable state, like a massive piece of junk. The system used to be hooked up to a specially designed Nalder Brothers clock, which too lay defunct in the registrar’s place of business, till it used to be spotted through officials conscious about its importance.
‘Not sure if system will also be repaired’
“The campus is old and it is natural that such treasures can be found if we glance carefully in the nooks and crannies. We have initiated researches into our history and the significance of the Benioff system has been dropped at our understand through assistant registrar, Bibhor Das. We will try to convey the system up and hotel it in a correct place,” said Biman Bandyopadhyay, registrar of IIEST.
“However, I am not sure if the system will also be repaired to run again, however we will no doubt restore and exhibit it as it is now, like we have now made up our minds in case of the Nalder Clock,” he added. Data related to the functioning of the Benioff system were retrieved through Das from old data.
A faculty member of the California Institute of Technology, Benioff had built his first batch of seismographs in 1932 to locate the deep sources of earthquakes. One of the first machines that he built used to be sent to the IIEST, then known as Bengal Engineering College, for consistent earthquake monitoring across the globe to sign up shocks and their origins. The data used to be then compared with the daily readings amassed on the California Institute of Technology to arrive at a greater precision as far as prediction used to be involved.
This system used to be part of the geophysical laboratory that used to be part of the maths department of the institute. Later, the laboratory gave strategy to the place of business of the institute’s engineer and the system regularly became defunct. Today, most people have forgotten that it existed in the future.
The earthquake measuring software—an original Benioff seismograph-meter —used to be built through Victor Hugo Benioff, the daddy of earthquake design tools. Installed in the 1930s on the ‘place of business of the institute’s engineer’, this software used to be a number of the first few built through Benioff and sent to the then Bengal Engineering College.
This development, which lay unused with its forgotten piece of history, made manner for a canteen after the authorities made up our minds to “utilise the distance higher”. A different flooring has been added over the garage area of the defunct system to stay it hidden from public eye.
A small door on the flooring of the canteen takes you down a steep, rusted makeshift iron ladder to the seismometer. The 13-part system lies there in a pitiable state, like a massive piece of junk. The system used to be hooked up to a specially designed Nalder Brothers clock, which too lay defunct in the registrar’s place of business, till it used to be spotted through officials conscious about its importance.
‘Not sure if system will also be repaired’
“The campus is old and it is natural that such treasures can be found if we glance carefully in the nooks and crannies. We have initiated researches into our history and the significance of the Benioff system has been dropped at our understand through assistant registrar, Bibhor Das. We will try to convey the system up and hotel it in a correct place,” said Biman Bandyopadhyay, registrar of IIEST.
“However, I am not sure if the system will also be repaired to run again, however we will no doubt restore and exhibit it as it is now, like we have now made up our minds in case of the Nalder Clock,” he added. Data related to the functioning of the Benioff system were retrieved through Das from old data.
A faculty member of the California Institute of Technology, Benioff had built his first batch of seismographs in 1932 to locate the deep sources of earthquakes. One of the first machines that he built used to be sent to the IIEST, then known as Bengal Engineering College, for consistent earthquake monitoring across the globe to sign up shocks and their origins. The data used to be then compared with the daily readings amassed on the California Institute of Technology to arrive at a greater precision as far as prediction used to be involved.
This system used to be part of the geophysical laboratory that used to be part of the maths department of the institute. Later, the laboratory gave strategy to the place of business of the institute’s engineer and the system regularly became defunct. Today, most people have forgotten that it existed in the future.
India’s 1st seismograph lies ‘buried’ at Shibpur campus
![India’s 1st seismograph lies ‘buried’ at Shibpur campus]()
Reviewed by Kailash
on
March 18, 2019
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