Does Shan post here or is it from an e-mail to someone here?

I just recieved this from him as a reply to my query to him. I was not clear what he was getting at in his message.

"The basic reason for asking the question is:

Item No 1:

To divert the way of thinking on the prediction of quake from the existing probability treatment for finding quakes.

Item No.2

People are shouting about plate movement does not think about lava which is often disturbed in which the plates are floating.

Item No.3

I come across my findings over rainfall while quake are occurred in sea areas.

SHAN"

Being new here and unfamiliar with the other methods, let me explain what the set-up is for Shan's method:

It is a (metal?) ladder set in the ground and attatched to a wall that faces the sun. Shan plots the shadow every day at the same time(s?) and ends up with a figure eight.

I can't understand why it is not an open curve resembling an S on its side. He reckons that the method is lava disruping the set-up for discrepancies from a smooth curve give him his clues.

I used to forecast local pecipitation from the shipping (weather) bulletins on the BBC, using a similar method or approach.

That was a long time ago before I fell out with the plonkers there (a plonker is a lead weight used to take soundings on rivers. It has slightly more pjerotive connotations in Britain, which I have promised not to use here.)

In answer to his doubts. His methods may work but his explanations don't. Lava at the site which may be over 180 degrees from his observatory is not going to move his ladder much.

It is more likly the disturbance to his gnomon and the wall probably come from the heat and the expansion of the ladder. In full sun the ladder will expand more than the wall causing it to bend. However the expansion will not be the same on two equally sunny days because the relative heat of the area is not dependant solely on sunlight.

Which answers his third question. Weather and the seismic events are one and the same.

You must surely have come across reports of bad weather hampering relief efforts in natural disasters. I suffer from pain in my shoulders when a quake is due in Western Europe. A situation generally regarded as a presage of rain.

Quakes in my area (up to 15* east I believe) occur when thunder is most likely in Britain. (When the phase of the moon is at 3 or 9 o'clock and the declination of the moon is 60* S of the region I lived in.) This circumstance has caused me to look like a charlattan on a number of occasions. It is also the reason why weatherforecasts go wrong using other methods too.