Friday Seismometer Blogging: Houfeng Didong Yi

dragon jar seismographThis is a replica of the world’s first seismometer, which was built in China, AD 130-ish. I haven’t been able to find a good diagram of the internal mechanism, but there’s some kind of pendulum in there, which jiggles in response to earthquakes. This moves a little lever on the dragon’s head, so that the ball drops from its mouth into that of a waiting toad.

Then it goes “ping”.

Comments

  1. Modulator wrote:

    Friday Ark #72
    We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….? We will add yo…

  2. Rana wrote:

    Supposedly it goes “ping”
    I don’t know why, but for some reason I really liked this bit. *grin*

  3. ~QueenL~ wrote:

    “ping”!!!!!!!!!!!!
    yay!!

    :) :] :}

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