 CHAPTER XXIX ST. VINCENT ISLAND AND MONSOUFRIER IN 1812 Among all the islands of the Caribbean, St. Vincent is unique in natural wonders and beauties. Situated about 95 miles west of Barbados, it has a length of 18 and a width of 11 miles, the whole mass being largely composed of a single peak which rises from the ocean's bed. From north to south, volcanic hills traverse its length, their ridges intersected by fertile and beautiful valleys. A ridge of mountains crosses the island, dividing it into eastern and western parts. Kingstown, the capital, a town of 8,000 inhabitants, is on the southward side and extends along the shores of a beautiful bay, with mountains gradually rising behind it in the form of a vast amphitheater. Three streets, broad and lined with good houses, run parallel to the waterfront. There are many other intersecting highways, some of which lead back to the foothills, from which good roads ascend the mountains. The majority of the houses have red-tile roofing, and a goodly number of them are of stone, one story high, with thick walls after the Spanish style, the same types of houses that were in St. Pierre in which are not unlike the old Roman houses which in all stages of ruin and semi-preservation are found in Pompeii to this day. Between the general group of the houses of the town loom the governor's residence and the buildings of the botanical gardens which overlook the town. Kingstown is the trading center and the town of importance in the island. It contains the churches and chapels of five Protestant denominations and a number of excellent schools. Away from Kingstown, and the smaller settlement of Georgetown, the population is almost wholly rural, occupying scattered villages which consist of Negro huts, clustering around a few substantial buildings or of cabins grouped about old plantation buildings, somewhat after the antebellum fashion in our own southern states. One of the tragedies of the West Indies was the sinking of Old Port Royale, the resort of Buccaneers, in 1692. The harbor of Kingstown is commonly supposed to cover the site of the old settlement. There is a tradition that a buoy for many years was attached to the spire of a sunken church in order to warn mariners. 3,000 persons perished in the disaster. Descendants of original Indian population. The northern portion of the island, that desolated by the recent volcanic eruption, was inhabited by people living in the manor just ascribed, the great majority of them being Negroes. The total population of the island is about 45,000, of whom 30,000 are Africans and about 3,000 Europeans, the remainder being nearly all Asiatics. There are, or rather were, a number of Caribs, the descendants of the original war-like Indian population of these islands. Many of these live in St. Vincent, though there are others in Domenico. As the residence was in the northern section of the island, the volcano seems to have completed the work for the Caribs of this island, which the Spaniard long ago began. These Caribs were really half-breds, having amalgamated with the Negroes. Many of the blacks own land of their own, raising arrow-root, which, since the decay of the sugar industry, is the chief export. In an island only 18 miles long by eleven broad, there is not room for any distinctly marked mountain range. The whole of St. Vincent, in fact, is a fantastic tumble of hills, culminating in the volcanic ridge which runs lengthwise of the oval-shaped island. The culminating peak of the great volcanic mass, for St. Vincent is nothing more, is Moncaru, of which La Soufrière is a sort of lofty excrescence in the northwest, 4,048 feet high and flanking the main peak at some distance away. It may be said that all the volcanic mountains in this part of the West Indies have what the people call a Soufrière, a sulfur pit, or sulfur crater, the name coming, as in the case of past disturbances of Montpellet, from the strong stench of sulfur-redded hydrogen which issues from them when the volcano becomes agitated. In 1812 it was La Soufrière adjacent to Moncaru, which broke loose on the island of St. Vincent, and it is the same Soufrière which again has devastated the island and has bombarded Kingstown with rocks, lava, and ashes. The old crater of Moncaru has long been extinct, and like the old crater of Montpellet, near St. Pierre, it had, far down in its depths, surrounded by sheer cliffs from 500 to 800 feet high, a lake. Glimpses of the lake of Moncaru are difficult to get, owing to the thick verger growing about the dangerous edges of the precipices, but those who have seen it describe it as a beautiful sheet of deep blue water. The Appearance of the Soufrière Previous to the eruption of 1812 the appearance of the Soufrière was most interesting. The crater was half a mile in diameter and 500 feet in depth. In its center was a conical hill, fringed with shrubs and vines, at whose base were two small lakes, one sulfurous, the other pure and tasteless. This lovely and beautiful spot was rendered more interesting by the singularly melodious notes of a bird, an inhabitant of these upper solitudes, and altogether unknown to the other parts of the island, hence called, or supposed to be, invisible, as it had never been seen. It is of interest to state that Frederick A. Ober, in a visit to the island some twenty years ago, succeeded in obtaining specimens of this previously unknown bird. From the fissures of the cone a thin white smoke exuded, occasionally tinged, with a light blue flame. Evergreen's flowers and aromatic shrubs clothed the steep sides of the crater, which made, as the first indication of the eruption, on April 27, 1812, a tremulous noise in the air. A severe concussion of the earth followed, and then a column of thick black smoke burst from the crater. The Eruption of 1812 The eruption which followed these premonitory symptoms was one of the most terrific which had occurred in the West Indies up to that time. It was the culminating event which seemed to relieve a pressure within the earth's crust, which extended from the Mississippi Valley to Caracas, Venezuela, producing terrible effects in the latter place. Here, thirty-five days before the volcanic explosion, the ground was rent and shaken by a frightful earthquake, which hurled the city in ruins to the ground, and killed ten thousand of its inhabitants in a moment of time. La Soufriere made the first historic display of its hidden powers in 1718, when lava poured from its crater. A far more violent demonstration of its destructive forces was that above mentioned. On this occasion the eruption lasted for three days, ruining a number of the estates in the vicinity, and destroying many lives. Myriads of tons of ashes, cinders, pumice, and scoria hurled from the crater, fell in every section of the island. Volumes of sand darkened the air, and woods, ridges, and cane fields were covered with light gray ashes, which speedily destroyed all vegetation. The sun for three days seemed to be in a total eclipse. The sea was discolored, and the ground bore a wintry appearance from the white crust of fallen ashes. Carib natives who lived and mourn roamed fled from their houses to Kingstown. As the third day drew to a close, flames sprang pyramidically from the crater, accompanied by loud thunder and electric flashes, which rent the column of smoke hanging over the volcano. Eruptive matter pouring from the northwest side plunged over the cliff, being down rocks and woods in its course. The island was shaken by an earthquake, and bombarded with showers of cinders and stones, which set houses on fire and killed many of the natives. The Terrible Earthquake at Caracas For nearly two years before this explosion, earthquakes had been common, and sea and land had been agitated from the valley of the Mississippi to the coasts of Venezuela and the mountains of Nugrenada, and from the Azores to the West Indies. On March 26, 1812, these culminated in the Terrible Tragedy spoken of above, of which Humboldt gives us a vivid account. On that day the people of the Venezuelan city of Caracas were assembled in the churches, beneath a still and blazing sky, when the earth suddenly heaved and shook, like a great monster waking from slumber, and in a single minute ten thousand people were buried beneath the walls of churches and houses, which tumbled in hideous ruin upon their heads. The same earthquake made itself felt along the whole line of the northern Cordilleras, working terrible destruction, and shook the earth as far as Santa Fe, de Bogota, and Honda, 180 leagues from Caracas. This was a preliminary symptom of the internal disorder of the earth. While the wretched inhabitants of Caracas, who had escaped the earthquake, were dying of fever and starvation, and seeking among villages and farms places of safety from the renewed earthquake shocks, the almost forgotten volcano of St. Vincent was muttering and suppressed wrath. For twelve months it had given warning, by frequent shocks of the earth, that it was making ready to play its part in the great subterranean battle. On the 27th of April, its deep hidden powers broke their bonds, and the conflict between rock and fire began. The Mountain Stones a Herd Boy. The first intimation of the outbreak was rather amusing than alarming. A negro boy was herding cattle on the mountain side. A stone fell near him. Another followed. He fancied that some other boys were pelting him from the cliff above, and began throwing stones upward at his fancied concealed tormentors. But the stones fell thicker, among them some too large to be thrown by any human hand. Only then did the little fellow awake to the fact that it was not a boy like himself, but the mighty mountain that was flinging these stones at him. He looked up, and saw that the black column which was rising from the crater's mouth was no longer harmless vapor, but dust, ashes, and stones. Leaving the cattle to their fate, he fled for his life, while the mighty cannon of the Titans roared behind him as he ran. For three days and nights this continued. Then on the thirtieth, a stream of lava poured over the crater's rim and rushed downward, reaching the sea in four hours, and the great eruption was at an end. On the same day, says Humboldt, at a distance of more than two hundred leagues, the inhabitants not only of Caracas but of Calabozo, situated in the midst of the Leonos, over a space of four thousand square leagues, were terrified by a subterranean noise which resembled frequent discharges of the heaviest cannon. It was accompanied by no shock, and what is very remarkable was as loud on the coast as at eighty leagues' distance inland, and at Caracas as well as at Calabozo, preparations were made to put the place in defense against an enemy who seemed to be advancing with heavy artillery. It was no enemy that man could deal with. Fortunately, it confined its assault to deep noises and desisted from earthquake shocks. Similar noises were heard in Martinique and Guadalupe, and here also without shocks. The internal thunder was the signal of what was taking place on St. Vincent. With this last warning sound, the trouble, which had lasted so long, was at an end. The earthquakes which for two years had shaken a sheet of the Earth's surface, larger than half Europe, were stilled by the eruption of St. Vincent's volcanic peak. Barbados Covered with Ashes. Next of the original crater of the Soufriere, a new one was formed, which was a half mile in diameter and five hundred feet deep. The old crater was in time, transformed into a beautiful blue lake as above stated, walled in by ragged cliffs to a height of eight hundred feet. It was looked upon as a remarkable circumstance that although the air was perfectly calm during the eruption, Barbados, which is ninety-five miles to the windward, was covered inches deep with ashes. The inhabitants there and on other neighboring islands were terrified by the darkness, which continued for four hours and a half. Troops were called under arms the supposition from the continued noise being that hostile fleets were in an engagement. The movement of the ashes to windward, as just stated, was viewed as a remarkable phenomenon and decided by Elise Recluse in the ocean to show the force of different aerial currents. On the first day of May, eighteen-twelve, when the northeast trade wind was in all its force, enormous quantities of ashes obscured the atmosphere above the island of Barbados and covered the ground with a thick layer. One would have supposed that they came from the volcanoes of the Azores, which were to the northeast. Nevertheless they were cast up by the crater in St. Vincent, one hundred miles to the west. It is therefore certain that the debris had been hurled by the force of the eruption above the moving sheet of the trade winds into an aerial river proceeding in a contrary direction. For this it must have been hurled miles high into the air till caught by the current of the anti-trade winds. Kingsley's Visit to St. Vincent From Charles Kingsley's, at last, we extract from the account of the visit of the author to St. Vincent some interesting matter concerning the eighteen-twelve eruption and its effect on the mountain, also its influence upon distant Barbados as just stated. The strangest fact about this eruption was that the mountain did not make use of its old crater. The original vent must have become so jammed and consolidated in the few years between seventeen eighty-five and eighteen-twelve that it could not be reopened, even by a steam force, the vastness of which may be guessed from the vastness of the area which it had shaken for two years. So when the eruption was over it was found that the old crater lake, incredible as it may seem, remained undisturbed, so far as has been ascertained. But close to it and separated only by a knife edge of rock some seven hundred feet in height, and so narrow that, as I was assured by one who had seen it, it is dangerous to crawl along it, a second crater, nearly as large as the first, had been blasted out, the bottom of which, in like manner, was afterward filled with water. I regretted much that I could not visit it. Three points I longed to ascertain carefully, the relative heights of the water in the two craters, the height and nature of the spot where the lava stream issued, and lastly, if possible, the actual causes of a locally famous robaca, or dry river, one of the largest streams in the island, which was swallowed up during the eruption, at a short distance from its source, leaving its bed and arid gully to this day. But it could not be, and I owe what little I know of the summit of the Soufriere principally to a most intelligent and gentleman-like young Wesleyan minister, whose name has escaped me. He described vividly as we stood together on the deck, looking up at the volcano, the awful beauty of the twin lakes and of the clouds which, for months together, whirl in and out of the cups and fantastic shapes before the eddies of the trade wind. Black Sunday at Barbados The day after the explosion, Black Sunday, gave a proof of, though no measure of, the enormous force which had been exerted. Eighty miles to windward lies Barbados. All Saturday a heavy cannonading had been heard to the eastward. The English and French fleets were surely engaged. The soldiers were called out, the batteries manned, but the cannonade died away, and all went to bed in wonder. On the first of May the clocks struck six, but the sun did not, as usual in the tropics, answer to the call. The darkness was still intense and grew more intense as the morning wore on. A slow and silent rain of impalpable dust was falling over the whole island. The negroes rushed shrieking into the streets. Surely the last day was come. The white folk caught, and little blamed to them, the panic, and some began to pray who had not prayed for years. The pious and the educated, and there were plenty of both in Barbados, were not proof against the infection. Old letters describe the scene in the churches that morning as hideous. Prayers, sobs, and cries, instigian darkness from trembling crowds, and still the darkness continued and the dust fell. Incidents at Barbados. I have a letter written by one long-sense-stead, who had at least powers of description of no common order, telling how, when he tried to go out of his house upon the east coast, he could not find the trees on his own lawn saved by feeling for their stems. He stood amazed not only in utter darkness, but in utter silence, for the trade wind had fallen dead. The everlasting roar of the surf was gone, and the only noise was the crashing of branches snapped by the weight of the clammy dust. He went in again, and waited. About one o'clock the veil began to lift, a lurid sunlight stared in from the horizon, but all was black overhead. Gradually the dust drifted away. The island saw the sun once more, and saw itself inches deep and black, and in this case fertilizing, dust. The trade wind blew suddenly once more out of the clear east, and the surf roared again along the shore. Meanwhile a heavy earthquake wave had struck part, at least, of the shores of Barbados. The gentlemen on the east coast, going out, found traces of the sea, and boats and logs washed up some ten to twenty feet above the high tide mark, a convulsion which seemed to have gone unmarked during the general dismay. One man at least, an old friend of John Hunter, Sir Joseph Banks, and others, their com peers, was above the dismay, and the superstitious panic which accompanied it. Finding it still dark when he rose to dress, he opened so the story used to run, his window, found its stick, and felt upon the sill a coat of soft powder. Volcano and St. Vincent has broken out at last, said the wise man, and this is the dust of it. So he quieted his household, and his negroes, lighted his candles, and went to his scientific books, and that delight mingled with an awe not the less deep, because it is rational and self-possessed, with which he, like the other men of science, looked at the wonders of this wondrous world. Section 31 of The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Avae in June 2010. The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire by Charles Morris. Chapter 30. Submarine Volcanoes and Their Work of Island Building. In November 1867, a volcano suddenly began to show signs of activity beneath the deep sea of the Pacific Ocean. There are some islands nearly 2,000 miles to the east of Australia, called the Navigators Group, in which there had been no history of an eruption, nor had such an event been handed down by tradition. Most of the islands in the Pacific Ocean are old volcanoes, or are made up of rocks cast forth from extinct burning mountains. They rise up like peaks through the great depths of the ocean, and the top, which just appears above the sea level, is generally encircled by a growth of coral. Hence, they are termed coral islands. These islands every now and then rise higher than the sea level, owing to some deep, upheaving force, and then the coral is lifted up above the water and become a solid rock. But occasionally, the reverse of this takes place, and the islands begin to sink into the sea, owing to a force which causes the base of the submarine mountain to become depressed. Sometimes, they disappear. All this shows that some great disturbing forces are in action at the bottom of the sea, and just within the Earth's crust, and that they are of a volcanic nature. For some time before the eruption in question, earthquakes shook the surrounding islands of the navigators group, and caused great alarm. And when the trembling of the Earth was very great, the sea began to be agitated near one of the islands, and vast circles of disturbed water were formed. Soon, the water began to be forced upwards, and dead fish were seen floating about. After a while, steam rushed forth and jets of mud and volcanic sand. Moreover, when the steam began to rush up out of the water, the violence of the general agitation of the land and of the surface of the sea increased. An eruption described, when the eruption was at its height, vast columns of mud and masses of stone rushed into the air to a height of 2,000 feet, and the fearful crash of masses of rock hurled upwards and coming in collision with others, which were falling, attested a great volume of ejected matter, which accumulated in the bed of the ocean, although no trace of a volcano could be seen above the surface of the sea. Similar submarine volcanic action has been observed in the Atlantic Ocean, and crews of ships have reported that they have seen in different places sulfurous smoke, flame, jets of water, and steam rising up from the sea, or they have observed the waters greatly discolored and in a state of violent agitation as if boiling in large circles. New shoals have also been encountered, or a reef of rocks just emerging above the surface, where previously there was always supposed to have been deep water. On some few occasions, the gradual building up of an island by submarine volcanoes has been observed, as that of Sabrina in 1181 of St. Michael's in the Azores. The throwing up of ashes in this case and the formation of a conical hill 300 feet height, with a crater out of which spouted lava and steam, took place very rapidly. But the waves had the best of it, and finally washed Sabrina into the depths of the ocean. Previous eruptions in the same part of the sea were recorded as having happened in 1691 and 1720. In 1831, a submarine volcanic eruption occurred in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and that part of the African coast where Cartheage formally stood. A few years before, Captain Smythe had sounded the spot in a survey of the sea ordered by government, and he found the sea bottom to be under 500 feet of water. On June 28, about a fortnight before the eruption was visible, Sir Paltney Malcolm, in passing over the spot in his ship, felt the shock of an earthquake as if he had struck on a sand bank, and the same shocks were felt on the west coast of Sicily, in a direction from southwest to northeast, building up of an island by submarine volcanoes. About July 10, the captain of a Sicilian vessel reported that as he passed near the place, he saw a column of water like a water spout, 60 feet high and 800 yards in circumference, rising from the sea, and soon after a dense rush of steam in its place, which ascended to the height of 1800 feet. The same captain, on his return 18 days after, found a small island 12 feet high with a crater in its center. Throwing forth volcanic matter and immense columns of vapor, the sea around being covered with floating cinders and dead fish. The eruption continued with great violence to the end of the same month. By the end of the month, the island grew to 90 feet in height and measured three quarters of a mile round. By August 4, it became 200 feet high and three miles in circumference, after which it began to diminish in size by the action of the waves. Towards the end of October, the island was levelled nearly to the surface of the sea. Naval officers and foreign ministers alike took an absorbing interest in this new island. The strong national thirst for territory manifested itself, and eager mariners waited only till the new land should be cool enough to set foot on, to strive who should be first to plant their his country's flag. Names in abundance were given it by successive observers. Nerita, Scacia, Fernandina, Julia, Hotham, Corau, and Graham. The last holds good in English speech, and as Graham's island it is known in books today, though the sea took back what it had given, leaving but a shawl of cinders and sand. The Bay of Santorin, in the island of that name, which lies immediately to the north of Crete, has long been noted for its submarine volcanoes. According to one account, indeed, the whole island was at a remote period raised from the bottom of the sea, but this is questionable. It is, with more reason, supposed that the Bay is the site of an ancient crater, which was situated on the summit of a volcanic cone that subsequently fell in. Certain it is that islands have from time to time been thrown up by volcanic forces from the bottom of the sea within this bay, and that some of them have remained while others have sunk again. How an Island Grew Of the existing islands, some were thrown up shortly before the beginning of the Christian era. In particular, one called the great Kameni, which, however, received a considerable accession to its size by a fresh eruption in Anodomini 726. The island nearest Santorin was raised in 1573 and was named the Little Kameni, and in 1707 there was added between the other two, a third, which is now called the Black Island. This made its appearance above water on the 23rd of May, 1707, and was first mistaken for a wreck, but some sailors who landed on it found it to be a mass of rock, consisting of a very white, soft stone to which were adhering quantities of fresh oysters. While they were collecting these, a violent shaking of the ground scared them away. During several weeks, the island gradually increased in volume, but in July, at a distance of about 60 paces from the new island, there was thrown up a chain of black calcined rocks, followed by volumes of thick black smoke, having a sulfurous smell. A few days thereafter, the water all around the spot became hot, and many dead fishes were thrown up. Then, with loud subterraneous noises, flames arose, and fresh quantities of stones and other substances were ejected, until the chain of black rocks became united to the first islet that had appeared. This eruption continued for a long time, there being thrown out quantities of ashes and pumice, which covered the island of Santorin and the surface of the sea, some being drifted to the coasts of Asia Minor and the Dardanelles. The activity of this miniature volcano was prolonged with greater or less energy for about 10 years. In 1866, similar phenomena took place in the Bay of Santorin, beginning with underground sounds and slight shocks of earthquake, which were followed by the appearance of flames on the surface of the sea. Soon after, there arose, out of a dense smoke, a small islet, which gradually increased until in a week's time it was 60 feet high, 200 long, and 90 wide. The people of Santorin named it George, in honor of the King of Greece. In another week it joined and became continuous with the little Khamenei. The detonations increased in loudness, and large quantities of incandescent stones were thrown up from the crater. About the same time, at the distance of nearly 150 feet from the coast to the westward of a point called Cape Flago, there rose from the sea another island, to which was given the name of Afroessa. It sank and reappeared several times before it established itself above water. The detonations and ejection of incandescent lava and stones continued at intervals during three weeks. From the crater of the islet George, which attained a height of 150 feet, some stones, several cubic yards in bulk were projected to a great distance. One of them falling on board of a merchant vessel, killed the captain and set fire to the ship. By the 10th of March the eruptions had partially subsided, but were then renewed, and a third island, which was named Reka, rose alongside of Afroessa. They were at first separated by a channel 60 feet deep, but in three days this was filled up, and the two islets became united. Reference may properly be made here to Montenuevo and Yorullo, not that they are pertained to the present subject, but that they form examples of the action of similar forces. In the one instance exerted on a lake bottom, in the other on dry land, each yielding permanent volcanic elevations in every respect analogous to those which rises islands from the bottom of the sea. In the Icelandic seas. Off the coast of Iceland, islands have appeared during several of the volcanic eruptions which that remote dependency of Denmark has manifested, and at various periods in Iceland's history the sea has been covered with pumice and other debris, which tell their own tale of what has been going on, without being in sufficient quantity to reach the surface in the form of an island mass. The sea of Reykjanes, Smoky Cape as the name means, has been a frequent scene of these submarine eruptions. In 1240, during what the Icelandic historians describe as the eighth outburst, a number of islets were formed, though most of them subsequently disappeared only to have their places occupied by others born at a later date. In 1422, high rocks of considerable circumference appeared. In 1783, about a month before the eruption of Skapta Jökur, a volcanic island named Nyö, from which fire and smoke issued, was built up. But in time it vanished under the waves, all that remains of it today being a reef from five to 35 fathoms below the sea level. In 1830, after several long continued eruptions of the usual character, another isle rose. While at the same time the scaries known as the Gaea Fuglaskar disappeared, and with them vanished the great auks or geofowls, birds now extinct, which up to that time had bred on them. At all events, though the auks could not well have been drowned, no traces of them were seen after the date mentioned. In July 1884, an island again appeared about ten miles of Reykjanes, but it is already beginning to diminish in size and may soon disappear. Off the coast of Alaska. Elsewhere in the region of the North and Seas, there are other instances of the influence of the submarine forces in raising up and lowering land. The coast of Alaska is a region of intense volcanic action. In 1795, during a period of volcanic activity in the craters of Makushina on Unalaska and in others on Unak Island, a volume of smoke was seen to rise out of the sea about 42 miles to the north of Unalaska, and the next year it was followed by a heap of sinery material, from which arose flame and volcanic matter, the glow being visible over a radius of ten miles. In four years the island grew into a large cone 3,000 feet above the sea level and two or three miles in circumference. Two years later it was still so hot that when some hunters landed on it they found the soil too warm for walking. It was named Ionna Bogoslova, St. John the Theologian by the Russians, Agashagok by the Alliots, and is now known to the whites of that region as Bogoslov. Mr. Dal believes that it occupies the site of some rocks that existed there as long as tradition extends. There were additions to the cone up to the year 1823 when it became so quiescent as to be the favorite hound of seals and sea fowls, and when the weather was favorable was visited by native egg hunters from Unalaska. During the summer of 1883 Bogoslov was again seen in eruption as it was thought. However, on closely examining the neighborhood it was found that the old island was undisturbed but that there had been a fresh eruption which had resulted in the extension of Bogoslov by the appearance of a cone and crater, Hague Volcano, 357 feet high, connected with the parent island by a lower sand spit and situated in a spot where the year before the lead showed 800 fathoms of water. At the same time Augustine and two other previously quiet islands on the peninsula of Alaska began simultaneously to emit smoke, dust and ashes, while a reef running westward and formerly submerged became elevated to the sea surface. Other islands of origin exactly similar to Bogoslov and those mentioned are to be found in this region, notably Konyugi and Kasatochi in the western Allotians and Pinnacle Island near St. Matthew Island. Indeed the volcano of Kliuchevsk which rises to a height of over 15,000 feet is really a volcanic island. A permanent addition was made to the Allotian group of islands by the action of a submarine volcano in 1806. This new island has the form of a volcanic peak with several subsidiary cones. It is four geographical miles in circumference. In 1814 another arose out of the sea in the same archipelago, the cone of which attained a height of 3,000 feet but at the end of a year it lost a portion of this elevation. In 1856 in the sea in the same neighborhood Captain Newell of the whaling bark Alice Frazier witnessed a submarine eruption which was also seen by the crews of several other vessels. There was no island formed on this occasion but large jets of water were thrown up and the sea was greatly agitated all around. Then followed volcanic smoke and quantities of stones ashes and pumice the two letter being scattered over the surface of the sea to a great distance. Loud thundering reports accompanied this eruption and all the ships in the neighborhood felt concussions like those produced by an earthquake. These phenomena seem to have ended in the formation of some great submarine chasm into which the waters rushed with extreme violence and a terrific roar. Occurrences similar to this last have been several times observed in a tract of open sea in the Atlantic about half a degree south of the equator and between 20 and 22 degrees of west longitude. Although quantities of volcanic dross have been from time to time thrown up to the surface in this region no island has yet made its appearance above water. The events here described repeat on a far smaller scale similar ones which have occurred in remote ages in many parts of the ocean and left great island masses as the permanent defects of their work. We may instance the Hawaiian group which is wholly of volcanic origin with the exception of its minor coral additions and represent a stupendous activity of underground agencies beneath the domain of Father Neptune. In part as we have said elsewhere in this work all oceanic islands remote from those in the shore bordering waters of the continents have been a volcanic or coral formation or more often a combination of the two. No sooner does an island mass appear above or near the surface of tropical waters than the minute coral animals effective only by their myriads begin their labours building fringes of coral rock around the cindery heaps lifted from the ocean floor. The atolls of the pacific circular or oval rings of coral with lagoons of seawater within have long been thought to be built on the rims of submarine volcanoes rising to within a few hundred feet of the surface much as coral reefs around actual islands. If the volcanic mass should subsequently subside as it is likely to do the minute ocean builders will continue their work until the subsidence be too rapid for their powers of production and in this way ring like islands of coral may in time rise from great depths of sea their basis being the volcanic island which has sunk from the surface far toward old oceans primal floor. End of section 31. Section 32 of the San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Dennis Sayers. The San Francisco Calamity by earthquake and fire by Charles Morris. Chapter 31. Mud volcanoes geysers and hot springs. Our usual impression of a volcano is indicated in the title of burning mountain so often employed a great fire spouting cone of volcanic debris from which steam lava rock masses sender like fragments and dust often of extreme fineness are flung high into the air or flow in river like torrents of molten rock. This no doubt applies in the majority of cases but the volcanic forces do not confine themselves to these magnificent displays of energy nor are there products limited to those above specified. We have seen that mud is a not uncommon product due to the mingling of water with volcanic dust while water alone is occasionally emitted of which we have a marked instance in the Volcan de Agua of Guatemala already mentioned. As regards mud flows we may specially instance the first outflow from Mount Pele that by which the Geron sugarworks were overwhelmed. The imprisoned forces of the earth have still other modes of manifestation. A very frequent one of these and the most destructive to human life of them all is the earthquake. Minor manifestations of volcanic action may be seen in the geyser and the hot spring, the latter the most widely disseminated of all the resultant effects of the heated condition of the earth's interior. It is these displays of subterranean energy differing from those usually term volcanic yet due to the same general causes that we have next to consider and it may be premised that their manifestations while except in the case of the earthquake less violent are no less interesting especially as the minor displays are free from that peril to human life which renders the major ones so terrible. While the largest volcanoes at times pour out rivers of liquid mud there are volcanoes from which nothing is ever ejected but mud and water the latter being generally salt. From this circumstance they are sometimes called salses but they are more generally termed mud volcanoes. Some varieties of them throw out little else than gasses of different sorts and these are called air volcanoes. The great mud volcano of Sicily. One of the best known mud volcanoes is at Maculuba near Giurgenti in Sicily. It consists of several conical mounds varying from time to time in their form and height which ranges from 8 to 30 feet. From orifices on the tops of these mounds there are thrown out sometimes jets of warmish water and mud mixed with bitumen. Sometimes bubbles of gas chiefly carbonic acid and carbureted hydrogen occasionally pure nitrogen. The mud ejected has often a strong sulfurous smell. The jets in general ascend only to a moderate height but occasionally they are thrown up with great violence attaining a height of about 200 feet. In 1777 there was ejected an immense column consisting of mud strongly impregnated with sulfur and mixed with naphtha and stones accompanied also by quantities of sulfurous vapors. This mud volcano is known to have been in action for 15 centuries. Very recently a small mud volcano has been formed on the flanks of Mount Etna. It began with the throwing up of jets of boiling water mixed with petroleum and mud. Great quantities of gas bubbling up at the same time. In several of the valleys of Iceland there are similar phenomena. The boiling water and mud being thrown up in jets to the height of 15 feet and upwards. The mud accumulating around the orifices when the jets arise. A mud volcano named Korobetov in the Crimea presents phenomena more akin to those of the igneous volcanoes of South America. There was an eruption from this mountain on the 6th of August 1853. It began by throwing up from the summit a column of fire and smoke which ascended to a great height. This continued for five or six minutes and was followed at short intervals by two similar eruptions. There was then ejected with a hissing noise a quantity of black fetid mud which was so hot as to scorch the grass on the edges of the stream. The mud continued to pour out for three hours covering a wide space at the mountain space. The mud volcanoes on the coast of Baluchistan are very numerous and extend over an area of nearly a thousand miles. Their action resembles that at Makaluba. The mud volcano of Java. There is a mud volcano in Java which is of interest as somewhat resembling the geyser in its mode of operation and apparently due to similar agencies. It is thus described by Dr. Horstfield. Quote, unapproaching it from a distance it is first discovered by a large volume of smoke rising and disappearing at intervals of a few seconds resembling the vapors rising from a violent surf. A loud noises heard like that of distant thunder. Having advanced so near that the vision was no longer impeded by the smoke a large hemispherical mass was observed consisting of black earth mixed with water about 16 feet in diameter rising to the height of 20 or 30 feet in a perfectly regular manner and as if it were pushed up by a great force beneath which suddenly exploded with a loud noise and scattered about a volume of black mud in every direction. After an interval of two or three or sometimes four or five seconds the hemispherical body of mud rose and exploded again. In the manner stated this volcanic abolition goes on without interruption throwing up a globular body of mud and dispersing it with violence through the neighboring plane. The spot where the abolition occurs is nearly circular and perfectly level. It is covered only with the earthy particles impregnated with salt water which are thrown up from below. The circumference may be estimated at about half an English mile. In order to conduct the salt water to the circumference small passages or gutters are made in the loose muddy earth which lead to the borders where it is collected in holes dug in the ground for the purpose of evaporation close quote the mud has a strong pungent sulfurous smell resembling that of mineral oil and is hotter than the surrounding atmosphere. During the rainy season the explosions increase in violence. There are submarine mud volcanoes as well as those of igneous kind. In 1814 one of this character broke out in the sea of Azov beginning with flame and black smoke accompanied by earth and stones which were flung to a great height. Ten of these explosions occurred and after a period of rest others were heard during the night. The next morning there was visible above the water an island of mud some ten feet high. A very similar occurrence took place in 1827 near Baku in the Caspian Sea. This began with a flaming display and the ejection of great fragments of rock. Interruption of mud succeeded. A set of small volcanoes discovered by Humboldt in Tobacco in South America confined their emissions almost totally to gases chiefly nitrogen. There is a close connection and character between mud volcanoes and those intermittent boiling springs named geysers. A good many of the mud volcanoes throw out jets of boiling water along with the mud but in the case of the geysers the boiling water is ejected alone without any visible impregnation though some mineral in solution as silica carbonate of lime or sulfur is usually present. The geyser is a water volcano. The phenomenon of the geyser serves in a measure to support the theory that steam is an important agent in volcanic action. A geyser in fact may be designated as a water volcano since it throws up water only. It comprises a cone or mound usually only a few feet high. In the middle of this is a crater-like opening with a passage leading down into the earth. As in the case of the volcano the geyser cone is built up by its own action. In the boiling water which is ejected there is dissolved a certain amount of silica. As the water falls and cools this mineral is deposited usually building up a cup-like elevation. The basin of the geyser is generally full of clear water with a little steam rising from its surface but at intervals an eruption takes place sometimes at regular periods but more often at irregular intervals. Perhaps the largest and best known geysers in the world are those of Iceland chief among them being the great geyser. Silica is the mineral with which the waters of this fountain are impregnated and the substance which they deposit as they slowly evaporate is named Silatius center. Of this material is comprised the mound six or seven feet high on which the spring is situated. On the top of the mound is a large oval basin about three feet in depth measuring in its larger diameter about 56 and in its shorter about 46 feet. The center of this basin is occupied by a circular well about 10 feet in diameter and between 70 and 80 feet deep. Out of the central well springs a jet of boiling water at intervals of six or seven hours when the fountain is at rest both the basin and the well appear quite empty and no steam is seen but on the approach of the moment for action the water rises in the well till it flows over into the basin. Then loud subterranean explosions are heard and the ground all round is violently shaken instantly and with immense force a steaming jet of boiling water of the full width of the well springs up in a sense to a great height in the air. The top of this large column of water is enveloped in vast clouds of steam which diffuse themselves through the air rendering it misty. These jets succeed each other with great rapidity to the number of 16 or 18, the period of action of the fountain being about five minutes. The last of the jets generally ascends to the greatest height usually to about a hundred but sometimes to 150 feet. On one occasion it rose to the great height of 212 feet. Having ejected this great column of water the action ceases and the water that had filled the basin sinks down into the well. There it remains till the time for the next eruption when the same phenomena are repeated. It has been found that by throwing large stones into the well the period of the eruption may be hastened while the loudness of the explosions and the violence of the fountain effect are increased, the stones being at the same time ejected with great force. Eruption can be induced by artificial means. Geises are found all over the island presenting various peculiarities. In the case of one of the smaller ones which is called stroker or the churn an eruption can be induced by artificial means. A barrel load of sods is thrown into the crater of the geiser with the effect of causing an eruption. The sensitiveness of stroker is due to its peculiar form. An observer states that quote the bore is eight feet in diameter at the top and 44 feet deep. Below 27 feet it contracts to 19 inches so that the turf thrown in completely chokes it. Steam collects below. A foaming scum covers the surface of the water and in a quarter of an hour it surges up the pipe. The fountain then begins playing sending its bundles of jets rather higher than those of the great geiser. Flinging up the clouds of turf which had been its obstruction like a number of rockets. This magnificent display continues for a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes. The erupted water flows back into the pipe from the curved sides of the bowl. This occasions a succession of bursts. The last expiring effort very generally being the most magnificent. Stroker gives no warning thumps like the great geiser and there is not the same roaring of steam accompanying the outbreak of the water. Close quote. The same author thus describes an eruption of the great geiser which occurred about two o'clock in the morning. Quote a violent concussion of the ground brought me and my companions to our feet. We rushed out of the tent in every condition of desabile and were in time to see geiser put forth his full strength. Five strokes underground were the signal then an overflow wetting every side of the mound. Presently a dome of water rose in the center of the basin and fell again immediately to be followed by a fresh bell which sprang into the air fully 40 feet high accompanying by a roaring burst of steam. Instantly the fountain began to play with the utmost violence a column rushing up to the height of 90 or 100 feet against the gray night sky with mighty volumes of white steam cloud rolling after it and swept off by the breeze to fall in torrents of hot rain. Jets and lines of water tore their way through the clouds or leaped high above its dome to mass. The earth trembled and throbbed during the explosion then the column sank started up again dropped once more and seemed to be sucked back into the earth. We ran to the basin which was left dry and looked down the bore at the water which was bubbling at the depth of six feet. Close quote. In the case of Stroker the cause of this eruption is not difficult to understand. The narrow part of the channel is choked up by the turf and the steam and prevented from escaping. Finally it gained such force as to drive out the obstacle with the violent explosion just as a bottle of fermenting liquor may blow out the cork and discharge some of its contents. Geysers are somewhat abundant phenomena existing in many parts of the earth while striking examples of them are found in the widely separated regions of Iceland, New Zealand, Japan and the western United States. In the volcanic region of New Zealand geysers and their associated hot springs are abundant. It was to their action that we owed the famous white and pink terraces and the warm lake of Rotomahana which were ruined by the destructive eruption of Mount Terawara already described. Geysers of the United States the United States is abundantly supplied with hot springs but geysers outside of the Yellowstone region are found only in California and Nevada. Those of California exist chiefly in Napa Valley north of San Francisco. In a canyon or de file their waters are impregnated not with silica but with sulfur and they thus approach more nearly in their character to mud volcanoes whose ejections are in like manner much impregnated with that substance. They are also like them collected in groups there being no less than 100 openings within a space of flat ground a mile square owing to their number and proximity their individual energy is nothing like so violent as that of the geysers of Iceland. Their jets seldom rise higher than 20 or 30 but so great a number playing within so confined a space produces an imposing effect. The jets of boiling water issue with a loud noise from little conical mounds around which the ground is merely a crust of sulfur. When this crust is penetrated the boiling water may be seen underneath. The rocks in the neighborhood of these fountains are all corroded by the action of these sulfurous vapors. Nevertheless within a distance of not more than 50 feet from them trees grow without injury to their health. Few of these fountains however are regular geysers most of them discharging only steam from the steamboat geyser this ascends to a height of from 50 to 100 feet with a roar like that of the escape from a steamboat boiler associated with the geysers are numerous hot springs some clear some turbid and variously impregnated with iron sulfur or alum. In Nevada the steamboat springs as they are designated exist in Washow Valley east of the virginian range. They come nearer and character to the Yellowstone geysers their waters depositing true geyserite or salacious concretions. The volcano springs in Louder County are also true geysers though of small importance. The ground here is so thickly perforated by holes from which steam escapes that it looks like a colander. The Yellowstone geysers the most remarkable geyser country in the world alike for the size and the number of its spouting fountains is the Yellowstone region in the northwest part of the territory of Wyoming in the United States which by a special act of Congress has been reserved as the Yellowstone National Park exempt from settlement purchase or preemption. Here nearly every form of geyser and unintermittent hot spring occurs with deposits of various kinds salacious, calcareous, etc. Of the hot springs Dr. Peel enumerates 2195 and considers that within the limits of the park which is about 54 miles by 62 miles and includes 3,312 square miles as many as 3,000 exist. The same geologist notes the existence of 71 geysers in the area mentioned though some of the number are only inferred to be spouting springs from the form of their basins and the character of the surrounding deposits. Of this vast collection of still and eruptive springs between which there seems every gradation those which do not send water into the air are owing to the magnificent cascades which they form often quite as remarkable as those which take the shape of geysers. The more striking of the lacquer may however be briefly mentioned. In the Gibbon Basin is a geyser of late origin. In 1878 this consisted of two steam holes roaring on the side of a hill that looked as if they had recently burst through the surface and the gully leading towards the ravine was at that date filled with sand which appeared to have been poured out during an eruption. Dead trees stood on the line of this sand floor and others with their bark still remaining and even with their foliage not lost were uprooted hard by everything indicating that the steamboat vent as it was called was of recent formation. In 1875 it had no existence but in 1879 the spouting spring which first opened it is believed on the 11th of August in the preceding year had quote settled down to business as a very powerful flowing geyser close quote with a double period one eruption occurring every half hour and projecting water to the height of 30 feet the main eruption occurring every six or seven days with long continued action and a column of nearly 100 feet. The new geyser in the same basin is also of quite recent origin it consists of two fissures in the rock in which the water boils vigorously but there is no mound and the rocks of the fissure are just beginning to get a coating of the salacious geyserite deposited from the water so that it cannot long have been spouting again in the grotto geyser in the upper geyser basin of firehole river the main or larger crater is hollowed into fantastic arches beneath which are the grotto like cavities from which it is named which act as lateral orifices for the escape of water during an eruption it plays several times in the course of the 24 hours and sends a column of water 60 feet high the eruption lasting an hour as yet however the force of the water has not been sufficient or of sufficiently long duration to break through the arches covering the basin or crater the excelsior claimed to be the largest of its order which sent water nearly 300 feet into the air at intervals of about five hours and of such volume as to wash away bridges over small streams below was not until comparatively recent years known as a specially powerful geyser but if it had for a time waned in importance its immense crater 330 feet in length and 200 feet at the widest part shows that at a still earlier date it was a gigantic fountain in this deep pit when the breeze wafted aside the clouds of steam constantly arising from its surface the water could be seen seething 15 or 20 feet below the surrounding level yet into the cauldron of boiling water a little stream of cold water from the melting snow of the uplands ran unceasingly since 1888 this great geyser has been inactive the castle geyser is so named on account of the fancied resemblance which its mound of white and gray deposit presents to the ruins of a feudal keep the crater itself being placed on a cone or turret which has a somewhat imposing appearance compared with the other geysers in the neighborhood it throws a column usually about 50 or 60 feet high at intervals of two or three hours but sometimes the discharge shoots up much higher the giant in the upper geyser basin has a peculiar crater which has been likened to the stump of a hollow sycamore tree of gigantic proportions whose top has been wrenched off by a storm the curious cup is broken down at one side as though it had been torn away during an eruption of more than ordinary violence and on this side the visitor is able to look into the crater if he can contrive to avoid the jets which are constantly spouted from it the periods of rest which it takes are varied an eruption often not occurring for several days at a time yet when it breaks out it continues playing for more than three hours with the volume of water reaching a height of from 130 to 140 feet in the interval little spouts are constantly in progress mr. Stanley saw one eruption which he calculated to have shot a column of water to the height of more than 200 feet at first it seemed as though the geyser was only making a faint the discharge which preceded the great one being merely repeated several times followed by a cessation both of the rumbling noises and of the ejection of water but soon after a premonitory cloud of steam the geyser began to work in earnest the column discharge rising higher and higher until it reached the altitude mentioned quote at first it appeared to labor and raising the immense volume which seemed loathe to start on its heavenward tour but it was with perfect ease that the stupendous column was held to its place the water breaking into jets and returning in glittering showers to the basin the steam ascended in dense volumes for thousands of feet when it was freighted on the wings of the winds and born away in clouds the fearful rumble and confusion attending it whereas the sound of distant artillery the rushing of many horses to battle or the roar of a fearful tornado it commenced to act at 2 p.m. and continued for an hour and a half the latter part of which it emitted little else than steam rushing upward from its chambers below of which if controlled there was enough to run an engine of wonderful power the waving to and fro of such a gigantic fountain when the column is at its height tensiled or in robes of varying hues and glistening in the bright sunlight which adorns it with the glowing colors of many a gorgeous rainbow affords a spectacle so wonderful and grandly magnificent so overwhelming to the mind that the ableist attempt at description gives the reader who has never witnessed such a display but a feeble idea of its glory close quote a description of the geyser at work the only other geysers in this remarkable geyser land which we can spare room to notice are those of the giantus the beehive and the grand the giantus sends a column of water to the height of 250 feet an eruption as usually divided into three periods two preliminary efforts and a final one divided from each other by intervals of between one and two hours while the intervals of discharge are very long sometimes it does not play for several weeks the beehive which is 400 feet from the giantus gets its name from the peculiar beehive like cone which it has formed the eruption is also almost unique it is heralded by a slight escape of steam which is followed by a column of steam and water shooting to the height of over 200 feet the column is somewhat fan shaped but it does not fall in rain the spray being evaporated and carried off as steam if indeed there is not more steam than water in the column the duration of the discharge is between four and five minutes and the interval between two eruptions from 21 to 25 hours the grand is one of the most important in the upper geyser basin yet unlike the grotto the giant or the old faithful so called from its frequent and regular eruptions it has no raised cone or crater and a much less cavernous bowl than the giantus and other geysers the column discharged ascends to the height of from 80 to 200 feet and the eruptions last from 15 minutes to three quarters of an hour with intervals on an average of from 7 to 20 hours this fountain is apparently very irregular in its action though it is just possible that when the Yellowstone geysers have been more consecutively studied it will be found that these seeming irregularities depend on the varying supplies of water at different times of the year the mammoth hot springs the marvelous phenomena of the Yellowstone region are not confined to geyser action hot springs of steady flow being as above stated exceedingly numerous of these the most striking are those known as the mammoth hot springs whose waters find their way through underground passages finally flowing from an opening as the boiling river which empties into the gardener river these springs are marvels of beauty their terraced bowls adorned with delicate fretwork are among the finest specimens of nature's handiwork in the world and the colored waters themselves are startling in their brilliancy red pink black canary green saffron blue chocolate and all their intermediate predations are found here in exquisite harmony the springs rise in terraces of various heights and widths having intermingled with their delicate shades chalk like cliffs soft and crumbly these latter being the remains of springs from which the life and beauty have departed the great spring is the largest in the country the water flowing through three openings into a basin 40 feet long by 25 feet wide from this the hot mineral waters drip over into lower basins of gracefully curved and scalloped outline the minerals deposited on the lips of the basin forming stalagmites of variegated hue yielding a brilliant and beautiful effect the terraced basins bear a close resemblance to the former new zealand pink and white terraces and since the annihilation of the latter are the most charming examples in existence of this rare form of nature's artistic handiwork end of chapter 31 and end of the san francisco calamity by earthquake and fire by charles morris