THE BIRTH OF A VOLCANO 139 



east Albemarle that morning was 76°. When we 

 reached the boundary of green water most distant 

 from the eruption, I had Jay Pearson take tem- 

 peratures as fast as he could pull up pailsful. We 

 were barely drifting at this time so that his records 

 covered a very short period of time and space. 

 When we were nearest the shore, although still 

 more than three hundred yards away, the green 

 water had risen from 80° to 99° Fahrenheit. At 

 this point we left the zone of influence and passed 

 into the blue water. At the moment when the line 

 of color was amidships the water under our stern 

 marked 99°, while that at the bows registered 78°, 

 a difference in less than two hundred feet of 

 twenty-one degrees. 



I examined the heated water carefully but found 

 no sediment or suspended matter. A small tow 

 net drawn through it for fifteen minutes took only 

 a single blue copepod, a small Coryijhcena or dol- 

 phin fish and a few tiny shrimps, all of which were 

 alive and well. Unless there was some inorganic 

 [matter so fine that it showed no trace in a fresh or 

 a long-standing glass of water, the sharp color de- 

 marcation was due only to contained air or gas plus 

 increased temperature. 



The streams of lava poured out of openings 

 several times their own diameter and soon formed 

 for themselves chutes of blackened, partly-cooled 

 lava. From time to time these nearly closed over 

 their streams so that three-fourths of a pipe was 

 formed, then as quickly the pipe would melt and 

 the great torrent stream out through the air unsup- 



