WHITE ISLAND AND HUNTLY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume IV, Issue 240, 24 September 1914, Page 2

WHITE ISLAND AND HUNTLY.

BAROMETRIC PRESSU RE. MR. D. C. BATES’ THEORY. Wellington, Sept. 21. A theory, that there is a close relationship between abnormal changes of barometrical pressure and volcanic activity has been advanced by Mr. D. C. Bates, Government Meteorologist, and he claimed that it is borne out by the White Island disaster. It is admitted in many quarters that a sudden drop from a high barometer may cause an escape of gas into a coal mine, and give rise to a disaster ; and, though Air. Bates found that his views on thermal activity sympathetic with the .barometer were received with disbelief when he advanced them, the present evidence, he says, is in his favour. Apparently the White, Island accident occurred at or about the same time as the Huntley coal mine disaster, and at the same time the barometer suddenly from an abnormally high reading. From the 6th io the 20th of this month the glass has been high in the north, with sudden rises and drops, and on the afternoon of the lOth it was very high, anil fell after midnight. It has since risen Io an abnormal height on the 16th, dropping again rapidly tdl to-day. Air. Bates expressed his opinion on the subject in August. 191 !. when the barometer was higher thin it had been for five years (30.71 in at Queenstown). Most cf the big mining disasters in New Zealand, he said, had occurred during times when great oscillations of the barometer had taken place, a wave oi high pressure being followed by a wave of very low pressure. "L have also observed.’’ he said, “that- volcanic and thermal activity is most marked after a very high barometer. Time after time Ngaruahoe, for instance, has gone into eruption when such great changes in the atmospheric pressure have taken place. Under normal conditions the pressure of the atmosphere over a man’s body is 15 tons, and this is counteracted by pressure from within. Let the pressure be suddenly removed from without or from within, and you can well imagine that the result would be a violent disturbance.” Air. Bates proceeded to point out that a drop, say, from three-quarters of an inch above normal to an inch below normal would mean the removal of millions of tons’ weight from the surface of even a moderate area of the earth, possibly allowing the free play cf pent-up internal gases. Air Bates added that the Tarawera eruption had occurred during a period of abnormally high barometer, a sudden drop of half an inch occurring about the actual time of the eruption.