288 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



very violent. The lava advancing on the village of Ballo, completely 

 swallowed up several houses on that day, as also the road which divides 

 it from Zaffarana. During the next two days it diminished in pcnver, 

 and hopes were entertained that one or two neighboring villages might 

 be saved. On the 4th of September, however, it again burst forth 

 with unusual fury, thundering, shaking, and vomiting forth new 

 matter in the direction of Milo. Thus the mountain continued its 

 activity with greater or less violence throughout the whole month. If 



v ^? C.J 



the lava flowed in smaller quantity, denser clouds of smoke arose, and 

 a greater quantity of ashes and sand were thrown out. During 

 the month of October much activity was manifested, though greater 

 hopes were entertained that the eruptions might soon cease. 



A correspondent of the London Athenaeum says, the damage which 

 has been inflicted is difficult to estimate, for the course of the lava lay 

 through a country of extraordinary fertility, and abounding in every 

 species of vegetation. Had nothing but ashes been thrown out, all the 

 saints in the callender would have been festeggiatij for nothing is so 

 propuctive of fertility as volcanic ashes, but what can make any 

 impression on large masses of indurated lava but the slow operation of 

 the elements, or what root for centuries will ever be able to pierce it 

 except the prickly pear ? 



An extraordinary feature of the eruption was the vomiting forth 

 from the crater of a large quantity of sal ammoniac, rendering the air 

 so impure as to threaten the lives of seamen on the coast. Vessels in 

 the vicinity of the mountain were covered with cinders, and ashes 

 and volcanic dust were wafted by the wind as far as Malta. 







GREAT VOLCANIC ERUPTION AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



ONE of the greatest volcanic eruptions on record, --that of the 

 volcano of Mauna Loa, at the Sandwich Islands, took place in Feb- 

 ruary, 1852, commencing on the 17th of the month. The eruption 

 appears to have been somewhat unexpected, and was not heralded by 

 any of the accustomed premonitory signs. The current seems to have 

 broken out through an old fissure, about one-third down the side of 

 Mauna Loa, on the north-west side, and not from the old crater on the 

 summit, called Mokuowcoweo. The altitude of the eruption was about 

 10,000 feet above the level of the sea, and at a distance from the Bay 

 of Ililo, of about GO miles. A writer who witnessed the eruption from 

 Ililo, thus describes sonic features of it : 



" By an accurate measurement of the enormous jet of glowing lava, 

 where it first broke forth on the side of Mauna Loa, it was ascertained! 

 to be five hundred feet high ! This was upon the supposition that it 

 was thirty miles distant. We are of the opinion that it was a greater 

 distance, say from forty to sixty miles. With a glass, the play of this 

 jet, at night, was distinctly observed, and a more sublime sight can 

 scarcely be imagined. A column of molten lava, glowing with the 

 most intense heat, and projecting into the air to a distance of five hun- 

 dred feet, was a sight so rare and at the same time so awfully grand, 



