A VOLCANO CURIOUSLY FORMED.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1217, 27 January 1886, Page 5

A VOLCANO CURIOUSLY FORMED.

A miniature volcano has been added to the laboratory of the Keystone Normal School, where it will hereafter be used for purposes of instruction. It was formed spontaneously at the Macungie furnace in v Lehigh County, on the top of a car of melted iron j cinders. As the extreme crust of the slag cooled and consequently contracted, the interior gases, cramped , for want of room, burst out at the surface in jets and spurts asja natural volcanic eruption, and proportionately | quite as high, gradually forming the frustrum of an irregular cone, with an j opening in the centre from bottom to top. Through this opening the melted matter was forced up from the mass below, running over at the top of the cone on all sides and dripping downward, cooled into beautiful stalaetical forms. After the gases had become exhausted, an opening was made near the base of the cone, giving another outlet to the matter left in the crater, which left the opening in the cone clear and comparatively smooth. The height of the cone is twenty inches, outside diameter, at bottom, fifteen inches, and at top.five inches. Its growth occupied half an hour. Itß weight js ninety pounds. This is a good illustration of the manner in which volcanic peaks are supposed to be naturally formed, confirming the theory that, as the crust of the earth contracts by cooling, the interior gases and molten matter requiring more room, mountain rangeei are raised, at the weaker points openings are forced, from which the imprisoned matter escapes, and yolcanic peaks and craters are formed, just ac in the specimen above described. — Lancaster, Perm., "New Era."