SAMOA'S VOLCANIC OUTBURSTS CEASE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11600, 6 April 1912, Page 3 (Supplement)

SAMOA'S VOLCANIC OUTBURSTS CEASE.

The volcanic outbursts that for over six years have terrorised the island of Savaii, in the Samoan group, have ceased a$ last. These eruptions have been almost incessant, and there is no record of any other volcanic centre that has been so violently active for so long a time.

All the terrific energy of the Matavanu volcano seems now to have been expended. Di\K. Sapper, Dr W. Grevel, and other students of volcanic phenomena express the opinion that there probably will be no other eruption of Matavanu for another century and perhaps never. The ground, for their belief that the volcanic energy has been entirely exhausted is that since the first month of 1911 there has been a gradual and uninterrupted decline of energy until every trace of it finally disappeared in October last.

In August last the lake of molten lava, was covered with a hard crust, but cracks in its surface still revealed the rosy light of the superheated matter below, and through one or another volcanic vent a little smoke was still rising. Three months later a cold surface covered everything. There was not a trace of smoke., not a sulphorous odor, no sign of fluid lava, nothing except a little steam here and there. So this is the end, perhaps for generations, of the remarkable phenomena that; specialists have travelled from Europe to study. The trouble has been that they have found little vantage ground from which to pursue their work. The ebullitions have been so continuous that it has been impossible to witness the phenomena and their results except at long range. ■* There was no volcano where these eruptions beginning in August, 1905, were centred. All the many volcanoes in the'island .had been quescent for over a century. Suddenly volcanic events were opened on the floor of a deep valley about eight miles from the north-east' coast of Savaii. The whole vallev was soon tilled with lava. The electa built up a ridge of lava, about 1000 feet thick, where the valley had! been; and above the ridge arose a mountain of outpourings, 2000 teet high to which the name of Matavanu was given. Over thirty square miles of the island: were finally covered to various depths with the fluid lava destroying many native houses with their nreas of cultivation. ~,... It has been estimated that at times tho outpouring of lava from the centre of eruption amounted to from 2000 tp 3000 tons a minute. The coral reef, about five miles from the shore is the 'outer boundary of the lagoon between the coast and the reef. This lagoon has been entirely filled with lava for a distance of about five miles along the coast and a long lava ridge was built up in the sea beyond the coral reef. The neighboring salt waters became a superheated cauldron, killing millions of corals and fish; and many fish thus cooked, were collected and eaten by the natives.