Various facts appear to suggest that one continuous field of mechanical stress developed in the earth's crust has a certain upper limit for its voluminal extent. The ultimate mechanical stress energy that can be stored up in this whole volume until a breakdown takes place in it may be identified with the energy of the largest possible earthquake. The energy deduced on this hypothesis agrees well with those of the actual largest earth
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.