More modern day seismographs were invented by Michele de Rossi (Italy) and Francois Forel (Switzerland) in the 1800's. The Rossi-Forel Scale used ten degrees of earthquake intensity. The currently used Richter scale for seismograph monitoring was developed by Charles Richter (USA) in 1936. Richter's earthquake monitoring scale measures vibrations from earthquake's seismic waves that travel through the earth.