OCR Text |
Show I, VOLCANO STUDY f j SAVES LIVES Youngest Branch of Sciences Proves of Great Value to World. HONOLULU, T. H.. Feb. 12. (By mail.) Volcano fesparch. virtually the youngest branch of the sciences, has already saved many thousands of lives, according to a recent address by Professor T. A. Jaggar. volcanologist i of the Kilauea Volcnno observatory. . The main object of volcano re search, said Professor Jaggar, is to enable observers to predict volcano eruptions and earthquakes. Although there is still much to learn, material j i progress has been made along this J line, largely through experimental ' work at the Kilauea observatory, i which is situated on the brink of Hale- 1 , maumau pit. "Has anyone yet been saved?" the volcanologist asked. "Most certainly At the West Indies and Agoshima, 1 Japan, and right now in Guatamala City, where destruction of the same ! kind a hundred and fifty years ago led to improvements: where history has promoted earthquake education; whore fresh disaster In 1902 kept fearfully fear-fully alive the expectation; and now we learn that only a few hundred were of a population of 90,000. "So at Kagoshima, Japan, when Sakurajim erupted and the earthquake came, people moved and returned, and not more than fifty people were killed; contrast this with the Messina straits in 1908 with 200,000 killed. "The lessons of St. Pierre, Mont Pelee with Its rush of 'cauliflower' clouds, its dome of lava and lava tower, all this mechanism marking danger; the- discovery of moving earthquake rifts as at Nagoya, Japan; the statistics of recurrence, of time, of place, of distribution, topography and tidal control; tne relationships between volcanoes and earthquakes; the marshalling of these facts according accord-ing to mathematics of chance, the , making of continuous measurements of I changing features as at Kilauea obser vatory the recognition of all this is not geology but a new science of geonomy, earth law tlese lessons of natural disaster have created a new i era In the study of the inner earth. Professor Jaggar in course of his address said that among other things learned by the observers at Kilauea is that lava is not liquid as was previously prev-iously supposed but is reality a hard, red-hot body. The seaming liquid is a foam of burning gases and of glass I , melted by them. This oxidation heat 'is mostly near the surface and the deep heat is perhaps only moderate. ; The theory that volcanoes act as( "safety vents," making improbable, earthquakes, was also denied by Prof. I Jaggar, who said that on the contrary , earthquakes are more to be expected m the vicinity of volcanoes than anyi where else. |