Geophysical research
The photographic recording of pendulum movement
After completing his master's degree in 1926, Herr was appointed Instructor in Biology at St. Xavier College (now Xavier University) in Cincinnati, Ohio where he remained for three years. He was the first Director of their newly established Seismological Station. Herr installed six instruments for earthquake monitoring and research, one of which was imported from Estonia. His station at Xavier was reported to be one of the best equipped in America. At a meeting of the Eastern Section of the Seismological Society of America in 1929, Herr described a novel alarm system he designed to alert observers when quakes of great violence were being recorded.
Father Herr and his Foucault pendulum at West Baden
In 1934, after further studies in Divinity at St. Louis University, Herr became an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at West Baden College, the Jesuit Theologate in Indiana. (This later moved to North Aurora, Illinois as the Bellarmine School of Theology.) For the next three years, he taught Biology, Cosmology, and Anthropology. Herr carried out Physics experiments while at West Baden. In 1937, he constructed a Foucault Pendulum in the dome of the College building weighing 95 lbs. and suspended on a wire 120 ft. long. A spotlight was attached to the bottom of the pendulum and directed on to photographic paper to record the Earth's rotational movement.