The Bishop Ring.

Progress, Volume IV, Issue 8, 1 June 1909, Page 274

The Bishop Ring.

The gist of an article recently published seems to be that so far as is known to science all the signs and portents pertaining to volcanic eruptions follow these phenomena. Of these the most pronounced and the best known is the "Bishop Ring." For several months after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, there was a haziness in the atmosphere, and remarkable gorgeous sunsets were observed in various parts of the world. The great eruption of Mont Pelee in Martinique was followed by similar phenomena. The generally accepted theory among scientific men as to the cause of these phenomena was propounded by Dr. Sereno Bishop of Honolulu, and is known as the Bishop theory. At the same time Dr. Bishop observed a ring round the sun, to which the name of the "Bishop ring" was given. On the first of January Dr. Bishop for the first time since the eruption of Krakatoa, observed the sun ring, and attributes its appearance to the recent disturbances in Sicily and southern Italy. The Bishop theory is that a volcano in very active eruption throws out immense volumes of impalpable dust into the higher strata of atmosphere, and that this dust spreads through the rarefied air until it surrounds the globe. Dr. Bishop is the oldest living white person born in the Hawaiian Islands, and has devoted much study to volcanoes and their phenomena. He is now eighty-two years of age. The residents of Geneva in Switzerland say that for two days about three weeks before the earthquake at Messina in Sicily, the waters of Lake Geneva rose and fell in a strange manner, as though sucked in by a siphon and then permitted to flow out again. It is said that the same phenomenon was observed before the earthquake on April 18, 1906, in San Francisco. In the above list the last instance is the only one that bears on the subject of forewarning. The Geneva people saw their portent three weeks before the event. Is there a clue here worth following up ?