HOW VOLCANOES ARE WATCHED

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 199, 23 May 1925, Page 20

HOW VOLCANOES ARE WATCHED

PROPHETS OF EARTHQUAKES

That famous Mexican volcano, Popocatepetl, beloved of generations of schoolboys for its tongue-twistingly quaint name, is in eruption.- after a sleep of 400 years. And eminent vol-

canologists are hurrying to the spot.

A queer profession is volcanology, twin-sister of seismology. Literally a volcanologist is a Boy’ Who Stands on the Burning Deck, Whence All But He Have Fled. Good nerves—or none at a U— a re indispensable for the work. When' a volcano has been quiescent for so many years that it may reasonable be considered to be extinct, it ceases to attract attention. But several big “fire mountains” that are merely slumbering uneasily have their official watchdogs, ever vigilant and busy with their tests and observations, up in a little observatory near the rim of the bubbling crater. Yoji find them cn Taal, in the Philippines, and 6n Vesuvius; on Kilauea, in the Hawaiians, and on Asutna, in Japan. In addition to the permanent stations, temporary observatories are set up, ever and anon, by parties of “watchdogs,” well versed in the ways of earthquakes and eruptions, when word comes of a volcano that apparently intends to give trouble. ’ The practical result of all the steadily accumulating mass of observations is a dossier of data that enables many an

eruption to be foreseen in time to give warnings-as to its probable extent and direction, so that lives can be saved and property removed from what, it is realised, will be the track of the lava rivers. Sometimes these warnings can be given even weeks ahead. Inc town of St. Pierre, Martinique, that was overwhelmed bv Mount Pelee, had a fortnight’s warning, but neglected to profit bv it. One of the most exciting experiences of “volcano watchdogs” of recent years was during the big eruption of Kilauea, when a party ,of plucky American volcanologists camped all night at the foot of a line of fountains of fiery froth three times the height of Cleopatra’s Needle! It was a splendid spectacle, the blindingly incandescent molten rock spurting up in continuous jets from the fountain cones; like monstrous Roman candles. For all their interpiditv, however, they must have had moments of feeling that home was not such a bad place after all when, about 3 o’clock in the morning, the fiery fountains “put a little more pep into it,” and shot up to a greater height than St. Paul’s Cathedral! The river of lava that ensued after this first blow-off of gas flowed twelve miles down the forested monutain-side to the sea.—Bassett Digby, F.R.G.S., in the “Daily’ Mail.”