Mystery Water Well Charts Temblors Throughout World
. '"I .ifej
Women No Longer
Shadows of Great
Men, Says Socialite
Points to Change Since Rameses II Built
Wife's Statue Quarter Size
THIS is a new age for women! No longer will
they be the shadows of great men. Thus de-. .
clares Mrs. George Kohn, socialite, whose hobby
is globe trotting and adventuring in strange
lands, and who has made a study of women's
new freedom as'compared with women all over
the world of former generations.
By Mrs. George Kohn
(As told to Staff writer)
IT IS almost impossible to realize the diiicrence
I in the economic status of women today as com
pared with the women of former generations. In
my travels I have made a study of this subject and
find that never before in the history of the world
have women made such great strides toward the
new freedom.
When I was in Egypt last I found the statue
of Rameses II in the Temple of Luxor most inter
esting. I thought to myself, how humble was his
little queen!
According to the story told in upper Egypt, he
worshipped her, but his male ego wouldn't let him
have their statues made the same size.
I have noticed that women of the United States
who have had the advantages of wealth and
position are turning more and more to careers. I
have many friends of financial importance whose
daughters, weary of the social round, prefer to do
something constructive in the world and have suc
ceeded. THE clever girl today will turn her interests to
achievements, for the day when women existed
An earthquake hits Japan, leaving behind scenes such as are pictured aDove ana a 1.0s ngo.es water well records
the disasters with the accuracy of a seismograph I Scientists are endeavoring to discover the seoret of this hitherto .
unheard-of phenomena. Lower left Is one of the charts used to measure the daily water level of the well. Notloe
the sudden rise of the Ink line which, In this case, recorded an earthquake 4000 miles west. Right is the water level
. recording apparatus atop the well, which draws the graphs. In circle is D. A. Lane, who tells the story.
Scientists Puzzled by Accurate Seismological Stor Traced by Water Level Recording Device
Water Surges Upward When Earthquakes Occur
merely as shadows of great men is past.
Women
': ( VA a
Mrs. George Kohn, left, who discusses nerem cnanges
In woman's status since days of Rameses II. Right is
statue of Pharaoh with miniature of wife at feet.
have discovered that they too may achieve and are
doing marvelous things. This is as it should be.
The girl who dreams of marrying and doing
nothing is the girl who has not had advantages and
who is so glad to marry into importance so that
she may flaunt her victory.
On the other hand, the cultured, well-educated
eirls of wealth are planning constructive lives, not
alone for themselves, but for the city they live in.
They give up time and money to better conditions,
and'aid in civic and charity work.
In E'n-pt. however, the days of Nefert-Ari are
not vct'past. although they are striving for more
freedom, they have a long way ahead of them and
would like to imitate the -"men of the United
j States.
By D. A. LANE . "
Engineer, Underground Water Development Division,
Los Angeles Municipal Water Bureau.
. (As told to GERALD B. BURTNETT)
THE earth quakes in Montana, New York, far
off India and a water well in Los Angeles
surges excitedly while a revolving drum and a
pencil record every tremor caused by the temblors
thousands of miles away!
The water level story of earthquakes written on
the chart that keeps minute by minute track of
the city of Los Angeles' deep water wells in the
San Fernando valley has been checked with the
data of seismologists in Washington and proved
remarkably accurate.
Two miles south of the City of San Fernando,
reaching to a depth of 500 feet, is well No. 104. It
is one of several hundred privately-owned wells
maintained for industrial and agricultural use. But
its water level fluctuations are observed by the
city water bureau. .
Due either to its depth, or because it penetrates
a structure particularly sensitive to tjemblors, this
well is our best shock recorder. The fact that
makes us think .structure may have something to
do with the effects noted is that the "airport"
well just south of the Grand Central Air Terminal
is our second best reporter. It is almost on a
straight line with No. 104.
The water level in 104 stands at 240 feet most
of the time.
HERE is what happens when an earthquake oc
curs in some remote corner of the globe. The
pencil on the water stage recorder begins to jerk
with a slow and steady motion upon the face of
tho chart. From observation we have learned that
there is often a six-second interval between the
movements which are the result of earth vibra
tions. In the case of the great Japanese earthquake
of March 2, 1933, the pencil began its weaving
exactly 12 minutes after the heaviest shock hit
Nippon, a fact which checks with seismological
calculations from Washington and elsewhere. Our
records disclose that Los Angeles water wells felt
the shock at 2:35 a. m., Japan time.
It was written down here at 9:35 a. m., Pacific
standard time, and the distance from Los Angeles
is about 4792 miles west!
On the chart the permanent record is seen as
a scries of three horizontal lines, revealing that
two shocks of lesser intensity followed the first
From 9:35 a. m. until almost noon of that day, the
underground vibrations continued to agitate our
water wells.
Another interesting record shows the effect of
the violent 'quake that shattered buildings and
killed many people in India on January 15 of this
year. The registration of the shocks was nude
here at 1:30 a. m.. Pacific standard time, but they
began in India at 2:39 p. m. This data also checks
with other observations.
DISCOVERED quite accidentally by P. P. Odekirk
Bureau hydrographer, the first strange mark
ings on the charts were believed to be a failure of
the water stage recorder. By chance the relation
of the marks to an earthquake reported in the
newspapers was noticed. The coincidence inspired
inquiries to the seismological laboratories in Wash
ington. '
Astonished by the accuracy of our unaccounted
for markings, we began to develop a new interest
in the formerly prosaic task of caring for our
machines.
Odekirk has been fortunate enough to be pres
ent at a well while an earthquake was occuring
and to observe the movement of the instrument.
He was changing the graph paper on the revolv
ing drum of the machine when the pencil, which
normally would require several minutes .to move
up or down, began a fairly rapid motion.
He began to tinker with the machine, thinking it
was at fault when he suddenly realized that he
was seeing enacted before him the written drama
of an earthquake.
He stayed on as an observer for an hour when
the motion stopped and the pencil resumed its
normal course. Several hundred feet below him
the water in the well had been surging up and
down in the pipe to the same rhythm as the far
away temblor. .
The movement of the pencil on the chart is
activated by impulses originating from earth
movements and causing the water to rise and fall. 1
The machine itself is practically vibration-proof,
being welded into a solid base. Recently a wide
spread interest has developed in the data we have
acquired. Arrangements have been made for inter
change of information with other water well op
erators in various parts of the State as well as
with the Federal government.
SB. MORRIS, chief engineer of the Pasadena
city water department, has devoted a lot of
time to study on the subject. In a recent paper read
before a seismologists' convention at the Univer
sity of California in Los Angeles he reported that
the principal cause of water level surges during
earthquake oscillations is due to the alternate
compression and release of the earth strata as
i elastic waves from the center of shock pass
through the ground.
Picture the globe as a huge sponge. You
squeeze it, which is compression, and it gives out
its water. You release the compression and it ab
sorbs water again.
Just so the earth in the underground strata
carrying water is squeezed by the shock waves
passing through It from an earthquake center
many miles away. With the squeeze the water
level in a well rises. As the wave passes the level
goes back to normal.
In the Long Beach area earth vibrations gave a
graphic and visible evidence of the spongo simile.
Water rose in many small vents through the
earth's surface creating small cones and craters
in the costal plain area. Blue mud came up
through cracks in the ground. One water well in
the city of Long Beach poured over the top of
the pipe.
Morris noints out a maxim the deeper the
well the greater the surge. Relatively shallow
wells surge two feet or less during a shock period.
One well, 1400 feet deep, recorded an eight foot
surge.
The onlv permanent effect that has been re
corded in the increase or raising of water levels
was found in San Gabriel, in Orange county wells
and at Ran Rornardino. Following the Long Beach
sha';e. wells in these sections gained from two to
six feet in depth of tho water surface.
Laguna Beach Artist
Tried "Impossible"
And Became Famous
Acclaim Doesn't Halt Artist's Efforts To Put
"Perfect Wave" On Canvas
AN ocean wave slopped down into Artist Frank
Cuprien's soul one day, splashed around and
stayed there. It has caused him 40 years of trouble
and brought him world-wide fame.
For though Cupricn says that thus far he hasn't
approached perfection in his painting, the can
vases he thinks imperfect nevertheless put him in
the front rank of American artists!
The fact that he looks like Santa Claus and
doesn't care two puffs of his church-warden's pine
2
1 r.w m
!ffi :nln"jD
,J
Frank Cuprien, whose Inspiration to paint a perfect wave
has led him to fame. Dean of one of the West's largest
and most distinguished art colonies, at 65 he still hopes
to paint that "Impossible" thing.
whether he's laughed at, has little bearing on his
artistic efforts. He feels, though, that he must
apologize.
"We do the things we're made of," he says. "We
can put on canvas only those things we have in
our own souls "
AND that's the cause of the untiring and enor
mous labors of 65-year-old Frank Cuprien, in
his'strange, unpaintcd studio high on a cliff over
looking the sea at Laguna Beach, Cal. A wave cap
tured his artistic imagination long ago, and for all
these years in countless paintings he has been try
ing to create the perfect image of that wave on
canvas.
By the Monterey cypress trees which' protect his
lofty home from sea gales, Cupricn leans, elbow
on a stone wall, like some overgrown elf. His silver
whiskers and his silver hair blow all together in
the wind, and somewhere in the middle is his pipe.
His sharp, blue eyes flicker.
"I came here for a day, and I stayed 25 years.
I built this place when there wasn't another house
around. Now look there's a wholo city."
EVEN though tourists stare and call him "Santa,"
he strolls undismayed through the streets of the
little city he has helped make famous.
He's dean of all its temperamental artist-residents.
His marine paintings are known from one
coast to the other; and if he wants to wear old
leather puttees, a blue smock, black sateen
breeches and a lopsided beret while he saunters
of an afternoon, why then he wears them!
"Life always is striving," he says. "We strive,
yet cannot achieve perfection. I feel like apologiz
ing for painting the ocean. Never could I paint so
much as one wave perfectly; that is beyond attain
ment. Yet I strive for that creation, and some
day
"ImjK)SHible," he chuckles.
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