The 1872 Hamada earthquake occurred just after the Meiji revolution and caused damage in present Shimane Prefecture, the western part of Honshu faced to the Japan Sea. At that time modern seismology was not started yet and the first scientific paper on this earthquake was appeared after 12 years and detailed field investigations were done 40 years later. In this paper, we carried out literature surveys on this event and traced the process of the establishment of the total damage features and distributions. The effect of snow was also discussed because of her snowy location and occurrence season.
