The Exhibition Hall of the Museum of Chinese History in Beijing is home to a restored model

of the first seismographHoufeng Didong Yian instrument for testing wind and earth
movements. The inventor was Zhang Heng (78-140 AD), a famous scientist from the
Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD).
Though the original has long been lost, a history of over two thousand years ensures its
memory.. Scholars have been endlessly trying to restore the seismographs real identity, as
the restoration of the seismograph not only maintains the seismic-measuring apparatus,
but also shows the progress of our ancestors in search of the great spirit of science by
Seeking Truth and Evading Emptiness.
Zhang Hengs Didong Yi
Zhang Heng, from Nanyang of Henan Province, was a studious inventor who was especially
fond of astronomy, the calendar and mathematics.
In 132 AD, in the then national capital of Luoyang, Zhang Heng made the ancient
seismograph to determine the direction of an earthquake. Contrary to popular belief at that
time, Zhang Heng maintained that earthquakes were not signs of Heaven's anger but
natural disasters.
The seismograph was made of fine copper, and was an urn-like instrument with a central
pendulum. The instrument was cast with eight dragons on the surface (whose heads
pointed in eight directions -east, south, west, north, southeast, northeast, southwest, and
northwest), each one holding a copper ball in its mouth. Below the dragons were eight
copper toads raising their heads and opening their mouths opposite the dragons' mouths.
The inner side of the seismograph was ingeniously constructed: when an earthquake
occurred, an earth tremor would cause the pendulum to lose balance and activate a set of
levers inside. Then, one of the eight dragons outside the urn would release the bronze ball
held in its mouth. The ball would fall into the mouth of the toad and give off a sound,
letting people know when and in which direction an earthquake had occurred.