248 NOTES AND COMMENTS [octobee 



We are still labouring for the advancement of science, for the dis- 

 covery of new truth. The field, which is the world, was never so 

 white unto the harvest as now, hut it is still early morning on the dial 

 of science." The address was not a remarkable one, but we commend 

 this last sentence to the attention of those who speak as if it were 

 already late afternoon. 



Eruption of Mauna Loa. 



In the American Journal of Science for September some account is 

 given of the beginning of an eruption of the volcano of Mauna Loa, on 

 Hawaii. 



Early in the morning of 4th July, one observer says, " an immense 

 column of smoke and steam was seen rising from the crater of 

 Mokuaweoweo. It was pierced through with the light from the fires 

 beneath, until it glowed and shone like a column of fiery light, 

 resplendent beyond description, and reflecting its burning glow over 

 the whole heavens. The column seemed to be at least five miles in 

 diameter, and rose to a tremendous height. On Tuesday the column 

 of fire had disappeared. In place of it was the equally impressive 

 glow of the lava as it broke from the lower side of the crater several 

 thousand feet lower clown than the column of light had been, and was 

 thrown upward to a wonderful height by the forces which were in 

 action. On either side of the stream, whose surface of fiery red could 

 be seen like a line of glowing molten metal, were two cones which had 

 formed since the eruption began. It was from these that the lava was 

 being ejected. It was thrown up in fiery cascades high in the air. 

 These cascades, in falling, built up the cones, and the molten lava 

 running off from these formed the stream flowing off towards Hilo. 

 It would be hard to say how high these cones were, perhaps somewhere 

 between 500 and 1000 feet high, and half a mile in diameter, and 

 five miles apart." A later account mentions three lava streams, one in 

 the direction of Hilo, another off through Kau to the south-east, and a 

 third towards the crater of Kilauea. 



The journal from which we have cited the above also calls atten- 

 tion to a paper by Mr. C. J. Lyons, of Honolulu, on " Sun Spots and 

 Hawaiian Volcanoes," published in the April number of the Monthly 

 Weather Review. The author gives a table of the years of minimum 

 sun spots for the past century, with the dates of prominent volcanic 

 eruptions of Kilauea or Mauna Loa, showing a striking correspondence 

 between the times of the two phenomena. As pointed out by the 

 editor of the Review, however, a more thorough investigation is needed 

 to prove that the coincidence noted is due to a real causal connection. 



