Chapter 24. Volcanoes Of The Philippines And Other Pacific Islands

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_ CHAPTER XXIV. Volcanoes of the Philippines and Other Pacific Islands

We cannot do better than open this chapter with an account of the work of volcanoes in the mountain-girdled East Indian island of Java. This large and fertile tropical island has a large native population, and many European settlers are employed in cultivating spices, coffee and woods. The island is rather more than 600 miles long, and it is not 150 miles broad in any part; and this narrow shape is produced by a chain of volcanoes which runs along it. There is scarcely any other region in the world where volcanoes are so numerous, even in the East, where the volcano is a very common product of nature. Some of the volcanoes of Java are constantly in eruption, while others are inactive.

One of their number, Galung Gung, was previous to 1822 covered from top to bottom with a dense forest; around it were populous villages. The mountain was high; there was a slight hollow on its top--a basin-like valley, carpeted with the softest sward; brooks rippled down the hillside through the forests, and, joining their silvery streams, flowed on through beautiful valleys into the distant sea. In the month of July, 1822, there were signs of an approaching disturbance; this tranquil peacefulness was at an end; one of the rivers became muddy, and its waters grew hot.

In October, without any warning, a most terrific eruption occurred. A loud explosion was heard; the earth shook, and immense columns of hot water, boiling mud mixed with burning brimstone, ashes and stones, were hurled upwards from the mountain top like a waterspout, and with such wonderful force that large quantities fell at a distance of forty miles. Every valley near the mountain became filled with burning torrents; the rivers, swollen with hot water and mud, overflowed their banks, and swept away the escaping villagers; and the bodies of cattle, wild beasts, and birds were carried down the flooded stream.

 

ERUPTION OF GALUNG GUNG

A space of twenty-four miles between the mountain and a river forty miles distant was covered to such a depth with blue mud, that people were buried in their houses, and not a trace of the numerous villages and plantations was visible. The boiling mud and cinders were cast forth with such violence from the crater, that while many distant villages were utterly destroyed and buried, others much nearer the volcano were scarcely injured; and all this was done in five short hours.

Four days afterwards a second eruption occurred more violent than the first, and hot water and mud were cast forth with masses of slag like the rock called basalt some of which fell seven miles off. A violent earthquake shook the whole district, and the top of the mountain fell in, and so did one of its sides, leaving a gaping chasm. Hills appeared where there had been level land before, and the rivers changed their courses, drowning in one night 2,000 people. At some distance from the mountain a river runs through a large town, and the first intimation the inhabitants had of all this horrible destruction was the news that the bodies of men and the carcases of stags, rhinoceroses, tigers, and other animals, were rushing along to the sea. No less than 114 villages were destroyed, and above 4,000 persons were killed by this terrible catastrophe.

Fifty years before this eruption, Mount Papandayang, one of the highest burning mountains of Java, was constantly throwing out steam and smoke, but as no harm was done, the natives continued to live on its sides. Suddenly this enormous mountain fell in, and left a gap fifteen miles long and six broad. Forty villages were destroyed, some being carried down and others overwhelmed by mud and burning lava. No less than 2,957 people perished, with vast numbers of cattle; moreover, most of the coffee plantations in the neighboring districts were destroyed.

Even more terrible was the eruption of Mount Salek, another of the volcanoes of Java. The burning of the mountain was seen 100 miles away, while the thunders of its convulsions and the tremblings of the earth reached the same distance. Seven hills, at whose base ran a river--crowded with dead buffaloes, deer, apes, tigers, and crocodiles--slipped down and became a level plain. River-courses were changed, forests were burnt up, and the whole face of the country was completely altered.

Later volcanic eruptions in Java include that of 1843, when Mount Guntur flung out sand and ashes estimated at the vast total of thirty million tons, and those of 1849 and 1872 when Mount Merapi, a very active volcano, covered a great extent of country with stones and ashes, and ruined the coffee plantations of the neighboring districts.

We have said nothing concerning the most terrible explosion of all, that of the volcanic island of Krakatoa, off the Javan coast. This event was so phenomenal as to deserve a chapter of its own, for which we reserve it.

The United States, as one result of its recent acquisition of island dominions, has added largely to its wealth in volcanic mountains. The famous Hawaiian craters, far the greatest in the world, now belong to our national estate, and the Philippine Islands contain various others, of less importance, yet some of which have proved very destructive. A description of those of the Island of Luzon, which are the most active in the archipelago, is here sub-joined.

 

THE LUZON VOLCANOES.

Volcanoes have played an important part in the formation of the Philippine Islands and have left traces of their former activity in all directions. Most of them, however, have long been dead and silent, only a few of the once numerous group being now active. Of these there are three of importance in the southern region of Luzon--Taal, Bulusan and Mayon or Albay.

The last named of these is the largest and most active of the existing volcanoes. In form it is of marvellous grace and beauty, forming a perfect cone, about fifty miles in circuit at base and rising to a height of 8,900 feet. It is one of the most prominent landmarks to navigators in the island. From its crater streams upward a constant smoke, accompanied at times by flame, while from its depths issue subterranean sounds, often heard at a distance of many leagues. The whole surrounding country is marked by evidences of old eruptions.

This mountain, in 1767, sent up a cone of flame of forty feet in diameter at base, for ten days, and for two months a wide stream of lava poured from its crater. A month later there gushed forth great floods of water, which filled the rivers to overflow, doing widespread damage to the neighboring plantations. But its greatest and most destructive eruption took place in 1812, the year of the great eruption of the St. Vincent volcano. On this fatal occasion several towns were destroyed and no less than 12,000 people lost their lives. The debris flung forth from the crater were so abundant that deposits deep enough to bury the tallest trees were formed near the mountain. In 1867 another disastrous explosion took place, and still another in 1888. A disaster different in kind and cause occurred in 1876, when a terrible tropical storm burst upon the mountain. The floods of rain swept from its sides the loose volcanic material, and brought destruction to the neighboring country, more than six thousand houses being ruined by the rushing flood.

 

BULUSAN AND TAAL

Bulusan, a volcano on the southern extremity of the island, resembles Vesuvius in shape. For many years it remained dormant, but in 1852 smoke began to issue from its crater. In some respects the most interesting of these three volcanoes is that of Taal, which lies almost due south of Manila and about forty-five miles distant, on a small island in the middle of a large lake, known as Bombom or Bongbong. A remarkable feature of this volcanic mountain is that it is probably the lowest in the world, its height being only 850 feet above sea level. There are doubtful traditions that Lake Bombom, a hundred square miles in extent, was formed by a terrible eruption in 1700, by which a lofty mountain 8000 or 9000 feet high, was destroyed. The vast deposits of porous tufa in the surrounding country are certainly evidences of former great eruptions from Mount Taal.

The crater of this volcano is an immense, cup-shaped depression, a mile or more in diameter and about 800 feet deep. When recently visited by Professor Worcester, during his travels in these islands, he found it to contain three boiling lakelets of strangely-colored water, one being of a dirty brown hue, a second intensely yellow in tint, and the third of a brilliant emerald green. The mountain still steams and fumes, as if too actively at work below to be at rest above. In past times it has shown the forces at play in its depths by breaking at times into frightful activity. Of the various explosions on record, the three most violent were those of 1716, 1749, and 1754. In the last-named year the earth for miles round quaked with the convulsive throes of the deeply disturbed mountain, and vast quantities of volcanic dust were hurled high into the air, sufficient to make it dark at midday for many leagues around. The roofs of distant Manila were covered with volcanic dust and ashes. Molten lava also poured from the crater and flowed into the lake, which boiled with the intense heat, while great showers of stones and ashes fell into its waters.

 

VOLCANOES IN THE SOUTHERN ISLANDS

Extinct volcanoes are numerous in Luzon, and there are smoking cones in the north, and also in the Babuyanes Islands still farther north. Volcanoes also exist in several of the other islands. On Negros is the active peak of Malaspina, and on Camiguin, an island about ninety miles to the southeast, a new volcano broke out in 1876. The large island of Mindanao has three volcanoes, of which Cottabato was in eruption in 1856 and is still active at intervals. Apo, the largest of the three, estimated to be 10,312 feet high, has three summits, within which lies the great crater, now extinct and filled with water.

In evidence of former volcanic activity are the abundant deposits of sulphur on the island of Leyte, the hot springs in various localities, and the earthquakes which occasionally bring death and destruction. Of the many of these on record, the most destructive was in 1863, when 400 people were killed and 2,000 injured, while many buildings were wrecked. Another in 1880 wrought great destruction in Manila and elsewhere, though without loss of life. An earthquake in Mindanao in 1675 opened a passage to the sea, and a vast plain emerged. These convulsions of the earth affect the form and elevation of buildings, which are rarely more than two stories high and lightly built, while translucent sea-shells replace glass in their windows.

While Java is the most prolific in volcanoes of the islands of the Malayan Archipelago, other islands of the group possess active cones, including Sumatra, Bali, Amboyna, Banda and others. In Sanguir, an island north of Celebes, is a volcanic mountain from which there was a destructive eruption in 1856. The country was devastated with lava, stones and volcanic ashes, ruining a wide district and killing nearly 3,000 of the inhabitants. Mount Madrian in one of the Spice Islands, was rent in twain by a fierce eruption in 1646, and since then has remained two distinct mountains. It became active again in 1862, after two centuries of repose, and caused great loss of life and property. Sorea, a small island of the same group, forming but a single volcanic mountain, had an eruption in 1693, the cone crumbling gradually till a vast crater was formed, filled with liquid lava and occupying nearly half the island. This lake of fire increased in size by the same process till in the end it took possession of the island and forced all the inhabitants to flee to more hospitable shores.

 

THE GREAT ERUPTION OF TOMBORO

But of the East Indian Islands Sumbawa, lying east of Java, contains the most formidable volcano--one indeed scarcely without a rival in the world. This is named Tomboro. Of its various eruptions the most furious on record was that of 1815. This, as we are told by Sir Stamford Raffles, far exceeded in force and duration any of the known outbreaks of Etna or Vesuvius. The ground trembled and the echoes of its roar were heard through an area of 1,000 miles around the volcano, and to a distance of 300 miles its effects were astounding.

In Java, 300 miles away, ashes filled the air so thickly that the solar rays could not penetrate them, and fell to the depth of several inches. The detonations were so similar to the reports of artillery as to be mistaken for them. The Rajah of Sang'ir, who was an eye-witness of the eruption, thus described it to Sir Stamford:

"About 7 P. M. on the 10th of April, three distinct columns of flame burst forth near the top of the Tomboro mountain (all of them apparently within the verge of the crater), and, after ascending separately to a very great height, their tops united in the air in a troubled, confused manner. In short time the whole mountain next Sang'ir appeared like a body of liquid fire, extending itself in every direction. The fire and columns of flame continued to rage with unabated fury, until the darkness caused by the quantity of falling matter obscured them, at about 8 P. M. Stones at this time fell very thick at Sang'ir--some of them as large as two fists, but generally not larger than walnuts. Between 9 and 10 P. M. ashes began to fall, and soon after a violent whirlwind ensued, which blew down nearly every house in the village of Sang'ir--carrying the roofs and light parts away with it. In the port of Sang'ir, adjoining Tomboro, its effects were much more violent--tearing up by the roots the largest trees, and carrying them into the air, together with men, horses, cattle, and whatever else came within its influence. This will account for the immense number of floating trees seen at sea. The sea rose nearly twelve feet higher than it had ever been known to do before, and completely spoiled the only spots of rice-land in Sang'ir--sweeping away houses and everything within its reach. The whirlwind lasted about an hour. No explosions were heard till the whirlwind had ceased, at about 11 P.M. From midnight till the evening of the 11th, they continued without intermission. After that time their violence moderated, and they were heard only at intervals; but the explosions did not cease entirely until the 15th of July. Of all the villages of Tomboro, Tempo, containing about forty inhabitants, is the only one remaining. In Pekate no vestige of a house is left; twenty-six of the people, who were at Sumbawa at the time, are the whole of the population who have escaped. From the most particular inquiries I have been able to make, there were certainly no fewer than 12,000 individuals in Tomboro and Pekate at the time of the eruption, of whom only five or six survive. The trees and herbage of every description, along the whole of the north and west sides of the peninsula, have been completely destroyed, with the exception of those on a high point of land, near the spot where the village of Tomboro stood."

Tomboro village was not only invaded by the sea on this occasion, but its site permanently subsided; so that there is now eighteen feet of water where there was formerly dry land.

 

THE VOLCANOES OF JAPAN

The Japanese archipelago, as stated in an earlier chapter, is abundantly supplied with volcanoes, a number of them being active. Of these the best known to travelers is Asamayama, a mountain 8,500 feet high, of which there are several recorded eruptions. The first of these was in 1650; after which the volcano remained feebly active till 1783, when it broke out in a very severe eruption. In 1870 there was another of some severity, accompanied by violent shocks of earthquake felt at Yokohama. The crater is very deep, with irregular rocky walls of a sulphurous character.

Far the most famous of all the Japanese mountains, however, is that named Fuji-san, but commonly termed in English Fujiyama or Fusiyama. It is in the vicinity of the capital, and is the most prominent object in the landscape for many miles around. The apex is shaped somewhat like an eight-petaled lotus flower, and offers to view from different directions from three to five peaks.

Though now apparently extinct, it was formerly an active volcano, and is credited in history with several very disastrous eruptions. The last of these was in 1707, at which time the whole summit burst into flames. Rocks were split and shattered by the heat, and stones fell to the depth of several inches in Yeddo (now Tokyo), sixty miles away. At present there are in its crater, which has a depth of 700 or 800 feet, neither sulphurous exhalations nor steam. According to Japanese tradition this great peak was upheaved in a single night from the bottom of the sea, more than twenty-one hundred years ago.

Nothing can be more majestic than this volcano, extinct though it be, rising in an immense cone from the plain to the height of over twelve thousand feet, truncated at the top, and with its peak almost always snow-covered. Its ascent is not difficult to an expert climber, and has frequently been made. From its summit is unfolded a panorama beyond the power of words to describe, and probably the most remarkable on the globe. Mountains, valleys, lakes, forests and the villages of thirteen counties may be seen. As we gaze upon its beautifully shaped and lofty mass, visible even from Yokohama and a hundred miles at sea, one does not wonder that it should be regarded as a holy mountain, and that it should form a conspicuous object in every Japanese work of art. It is to the natives of Japan as Mont Blanc is to Europeans, the "monarch of mountains."

In summer pilgrimages are made around the base of the summit elevation, and there are on the upward path a number of Buddhist temples and shrines, made of blocks of stone, for devotion, shelter and the storage of food for pilgrims. Hakone Lake is three thousand feet above the sea, and probably lies in the crater of an extinct volcano. Its waters are very deep; it is several miles long and wide, and is surrounded by high hills which abound in fine scenery, solfataras and mineral springs.

 

HOT SPRINGS NEAR HAKONE LAKE

At this place the mountain seems to be smouldering, as sulphur fumes and steam issue at many points, and the ground is covered with a friable white alkaline substance. In many a hollow the water bubbles with clouds of vapor and sulphuretted hydrogen; here the soil is hot and evidently underlaid by active fires. It is not safe to go very near, as the crust is thin and crumbling. The water running down the hills has a refreshing sound and a tempting clearness, but the thirsty tongue at once detects it to be a very strong solution of alum. The whole aspect of the place is infernal, and naturally suggests the name given its principal geyser, O-gigoko (Big Hell).

Fujiyama is almost a perfect cone, with, as above said, a truncated top, in which is the crater. It is, however, less steep than Mayon. Its upper part is comparatively steep, even to thirty-five degrees, but below this portion the inclination gradually lessens, till its elegant outlines are lost in the plain from which it rises. The curves of the sides depend partly on the nature, size and shape of the ejected material, the fine uniform pieces remaining on comparatively steep slopes, while the larger and rounder ones roll farther down, resting on the inclination that afterward becomes curved from the subsidence of the central mass.

The most recent and one of the most destructive of volcanic eruptions recorded in Japan was that of Bandaisan or Baldaisan. For ages this mountain had been peaceful, and there was scarcely an indication of its volcanic character or of the terrific forces which lay dormant deep within its heart. On its flanks lay some small deposits of scoriae, indications of far-past eruptions, and there were some hot springs at its base, while steam arose from a fissure. Yet there was nothing to warn the people of the vicinity that deadly peril lay under their feet.

 

BANDAISAN'S WORK OF TERROR

This sense of security was fatally dissipated on a day in July, 1888, when the mountain suddenly broke into eruption and flung 1,600 million cubic yards of its summit material so high into the air that many of the falling fragments, in their fall, struck the ground with such velocity as to be buried far out of sight. The steam and dust were driven to a height of 13,000 feet, where they spread into a canopy of much greater elevation, causing pitchy darkness beneath. There were from fifteen to twenty violent explosions, and a great landslide devastated about thirty square miles and buried many villages in the Nagase Valley.

Mr. Norman, a traveler who visited the spot shortly afterward, thus describes the scene of ruin. After a journey through the forests which clothed the slopes of the volcanic mountain and prevented any distant view, the travelers at last found themselves "standing upon the ragged edge of what was left of the mountain of Bandaisan, after two-thirds of it, including, of course, the summit, had been literally blown away and spread over the face of the country.

"The original cone of the mountain," he continues, "had been truncated at an acute angle to its axis. From our very feet a precipitous mud slope falls away for half a mile or more till it reaches the level. At our right, still below us, rises a mud wall a mile long, also sloping down to the level, and behind it is evidently the crater; but before us, for five miles in a straight line, and on each side nearly as far, is a sea of congealed mud, broken up into ripples and waves and great billows, and bearing upon its bosom a thousand huge boulders, weighing hundreds of tons apiece."

On reaching the crater he found it to resemble a gigantic cauldron, fully a mile in width, and enclosed with precipitous walls of indurated mud. From several orifices volumes of steam rose into the air, and when the vapor cleared away for a moment glimpses of a mass of boiling mud were obtained. Before the eruption the mountain top had terminated in three peaks. Of these the highest had an elevation of about 5,800 feet. The peak destroyed was the middle one, which was rather smaller than the other two.

"The explosion was caused by steam; there was neither fire nor lava of any kind. It was, in fact, nothing more nor less than a gigantic boiler explosion. The whole top and one side of Sho-Bandai-san had been blown into the air in a lateral direction, and the earth of the mountain was converted by the escaping steam, at the moment of the explosion, into boiling mud, part of which was projected into the air to fall at a long distance, and then take the form of an overflowing river, which rushed with vast rapidity and covered the country to a depth of from 20 to 150 feet. Thirty square miles of country were thus devastated."

In the devastated lowlands and buried villages below and on the slopes of the mountain many lives were lost. From the survivors Mr. Norman gathered some information, enabling him to describe the main features of the catastrophe. We append a brief outline of his narrative:

 

MR. NORMAN'S NARRATIVE

"At a few minutes past 8 o'clock in the morning a frightful noise was heard by the inhabitants of a village ten miles distant from the crater. Some of them instinctively took to flight, but before they could run much more than a hundred yards the light of day was suddenly changed into a darkness more intense than that of midnight; a shower of blinding hot ashes and sand poured down upon them; the ground was shaken with earthquakes, and explosion followed explosion, the last being the most violent of all. Many fugitives, as well as people in the houses, were overwhelmed by the deluge of mud, none of the fugitives, when overtaken by death, being more than two hundred yards from the village." From the statements made by those fortunate enough to escape with their lives, and from a personal examination of the ground, Mr. Norman inferred that the mud must have been flung fully six miles through the air and then have poured in a torrent along the ground for four miles further. All this was done in less than five minutes, so that "millions of tons of boiling mud were hurled over the country at the rate of two miles a minute."

The velocity of the mud torrent may perhaps be overestimated, but in its awful suddenness this catastrophe was evidently one with few equals. The cone destroyed may have been largely composed of rather fine ashes and scoriae, which was almost instantaneously converted into mud by the condensing steam and the boiling water ejected. The quantity of water thus discharged must have been enormous.

Of the remaining volcanic regions of the Pacific, the New Zealand islands present some of the most striking examples of activity. All the central parts, indeed, of the northern island of the group are of a highly volcanic character. There is here a mountain named Tongariro, on whose snow-clad summit is a deep crater, from which volcanic vapors are seen to issue, and which exhibits other indications of having been in a state of greater activity at a not very remote period of time. There is also, at no great distance from this mountain, a region containing numerous funnel-shaped chasms, emitting hot water, or steam, or sulphurous vapors, or boiling mud. The earthquakes in New Zealand had probably their origin in this volcanic focus.

 

THE NEW ZEALAND VOLCANOES

Tongariro has a height of about 6,500 feet, while Egmont, 8,270 feet in height, is a perfect cone with a perpetual cap of snow. There are many other volcanic mountains, and also great numbers of mud volcanoes, hot springs and geysers. It is for the latter that the island is best known to geologists. Their waters are at or near the boiling point and contain silica in abundance.

At a place called Rotomahana, in the vicinity of Mount Tarawera, there was formerly a lake of about one hundred and twenty acres in area, which was in its way one of the most remarkable bodies of water upon the earth. Formerly, we say, for this lake no longer exists, it having been destroyed by the very forces to which it owed its fame. Its waters were maintained nearly at the boiling point by the continual accession of boiling water from numerous springs. The most abundant of those sources was situated at the height of about 100 feet above the level of the lake. It kept continually filled an oval basin about 250 feet in circumference--the margins of which were fringed all round with beautiful pure white stalactites, formed by deposits of silica, with which the hot water was strongly impregnated. At various stages below the principal spring were several others, that contributed to feed the lake at the bottom, in the centre of which was a small island. Minute bubbles continually escaped from the surface of the water with a hissing sound, and the sand all round the lake was at a high temperature. If a stick was thrust into it, very hot vapors would ascend from the hole. Not far from this lake were several small basins filled with tepid water, which was very clear, and of a blue color.

The conditions here were of a kind with those to which are due the great geysers of Iceland and the Yellowstone Park, but different in the fact that instead of being intermittent and throwing up jets at intervals, the springs allowed the water to flow from them in a continuous stream.

 

THE PINK AND WHITE TERRACES

The silicious incrustations left by the overflow from the large pool had made a series of terraces, two to six feet high, with the appearance of being hewn from white or pink marble; each of the basins containing a similar azure water. These terraces covered an area of about three acres, and looked like a series of cataracts changed into stone, each edge being fringed with a festoon of delicate stalactites. The water contained about eighty-five per cent. of silica, with one or two per cent of iron alumina, and a little alkali.

There were no more beautiful products of nature upon the earth than those "pink and white terraces," as they were called. The hot springs of the Yellowstone have produced formations resembling them, but not their equal in fairy-like charm. One series of these terraced pools and cascades was of the purest white tint, the other of the most delicate pink, the waters topping over the edge of each pool and falling in a miniature cascade to the one next below, thus keeping the edges built up by a continual renewal of the silicious incrustation. But all their beauty could not save them from utter and irremediable destruction by the forces below the earth's surface.

On June 9, 1886, a great volcanic disturbance began in the Auckland Lake region with a tremendous earthquake, followed during the night by many others. At seven the next morning a lead-covered cloud of pumice sand, advancing from the south, burst and discharged showers of fine dust. The range of Mount Tarawera seemed to be in full volcanic activity, including some craters supposed to be extinct, and embracing an area of one hundred and twenty miles by twenty.

The showers of dust were so thick as to turn day into night for nearly two days. Some lives were lost, and several villages were destroyed, these being covered ten feet deep with ashes, dust and clayey mud. The volcanic phenomena were of the most violent character, and the whole island appears to have been more or less convulsed. Mount Tarawera is said to be five hundred feet higher than before the eruption; glowing masses were thrown up into the air, and tongues of fiery hue, gases or illuminated vapors, five hundred feet wide, towered up one thousand feet high. The mountain was 2,700 feet in height.

 

TARAWERA IN ERUPTION

This eruption presented a spectacle of rarely-equalled grandeur. To travelers and strangers the greatest resultant loss will be the destruction of those world-famous curiosities, the white and pink terraces, in the vicinity of Lake Rotomahana and the region of the famous geysers. The natives have a superstition that the eruption of the extinct Tarawera was caused by the profanation of foreign footsteps. It was to them a sacred place, and its crater a repository for their dead. The first earthquake occurred in this region. One side of the mountain fell in, and then the eruption began. The basin of the lake was broken up and disappeared, but again reappeared as a boiling mud cauldron; craters burst out in various places, and the beautiful terraces were no more. After the first day the violence gradually diminished, and in a week had ceased. Very possibly another lake will be formed, and in time other terraces; but it is hardly within the range of probability that the beauty of the lost terraces will ever be paralleled.

In this eruption, as usual, we find the earthquake preceding the volcanic outburst. New Zealand, like the Philippines, Java and the Japanese Islands, is situated over a great earth-fissure or line of weakness. Subsidence or dislocation from tensile strain of the crust took place, and the influx of water to new regions of heated strata may have developed the explosive force. The earthquake and the volcano worked together here, as they frequently do, unfortunately in this case destroying one of the most beautiful scenes on the surface of the globe.

 

THE ANTARCTIC VOLCANOES

Much further south, on the frozen shore of Victoria Land in the Antarctic regions, Sir James Ross, in 1841, sailing in his discovery ships the Erebus and Terror, discovered two great volcanic mountains, which he named after those two vessels. Mount Erebus is continually covered, from top to bottom, with snow and glaciers. The mountain is about 12,000 feet high, and although the snow reaches to the very edge of the crater, there rise continually from the summit immense volumes of volcanic fumes, illuminated by the glare of glowing lava beneath them. The vapors ascend to an estimated height of 2,200 feet above the top of the mountain. _

Read next: Chapter 25. The Wonderful Hawaiian Craters And Kilauea's Lake Of Fire

Read previous: Chapter 23. Skaptar Jokull And Hecla, The Great Icelandic Volcanoes

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