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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



taken near enough to the epicentrum to be 

 disturbed, as above assumed, to be equal to 

 24,000,000,000 foot-pounds. The speed of 

 transmission of this disturbance has been 

 pretty well determined by Newcomb and 

 Sutton to be approximately three miles per 

 second, so that a cubic mile would be dis- 

 turbed in one third of a second. To do 

 this would require 130,000,000 horse-power. 

 Assuming that an area about the epicentrum 

 100 miles square was thus disturbed, the 

 energy would be that of 24 X 10-13 foot- 

 pounds, and the rate of its expenditure would 

 be that of 1,300,000,000,000 horse-power." 



Volcanic Explosion in Japan.— The dis- 

 trict of Hibara Mura in Japan was visited on 

 July 15th with a volcanic outburst of most 

 singular character, which may be compared 

 for violence with the recent catastrophes of 

 Krakatoa and the Tarawera district of New 

 Zealand. The whole of Mount Baudai, a 

 peak nearly five thousand feet high, one 

 hundred and fifty miles north of Tokio, was 

 blown up, just as a steam-boiler might be, 

 by the explosion of the vapors accumulated 

 in the recesses beneath it. A number of 

 villages were ingulfed, with all their in- 

 habitants, estimated at about five hundred. 

 The region was inundated by torrents of 

 mud ; and showers of dust, which was red at 

 first and afterward turned gray, fell over 

 a wide extent of country. The catastrophe, 

 according to the accounts of witnesses who 

 survived it, was marked with the accompani- 

 ments of fearful earth tremors, detonations 

 which were said to sound like the firing off 

 of all the artillery in the world at once, and 

 a total darkening of the air for several hours. 

 At one point a river was dammed up by the 

 flow of mud, so as to form a considerable 

 lake. The scene of the catastrophe was 

 visited soon after the event by a scientific 

 commission appointed by the Government, 

 whose report has been published by Mr. W. 

 K. Burton, of the Imperial University. In 

 the view of this commission, the phenomenon 

 differed from usual volcanic eruptions in that 

 it left no traces of fire or lava. It was simply 

 a violent explosion of steam. That the 

 mountain was underlain by beds of hot water 

 has always been indicated by the existence 

 of hot springs on its slopes. The explosion 

 carried off all the middle part of the mount- 



ain, including the central peak ; it took a 

 sidewise rather than a vertical direction, and 

 scattered its debris to a depth of from three 

 to thirty metres, and in one or two instances 

 three hundred metres, over an extent of 

 about sixty square kilometres. A remark- 

 able feature of this disbursement is the 

 steepness of the piles of matter in some 

 places. 



Sacred Trees of Japan.— Not the least 

 engrossing element in researches into the 

 flora of Japan is encountered in the traces 

 of tree-worship here and there to be de- 

 tected. In Shinti the hi-no-ki, the sun or 

 fire tree ( Chamncyparis obiusa), is the sacred 

 tree of predilection ; the temples being con- 

 j structed exclusively of this wood, even to 

 I the tiles and nails, or pegs ; and from time 

 immemorial the sacrificial fires have been 

 kindled with drills made of hi-wood — whence 

 perhaps its name. At the great bonzeries 

 of Nikko, or sun-splendor, so named in the 

 ninth century, the shrines of the Shoguns 

 are surrounded by sugi-trees, the Japan 

 cedars {Cryptomcria Japonicd), which meas- 

 ure twenty feet in girth, and run to one 

 hundred and twenty feet in height, con- 

 tributing not a little to the force of the Jap- 

 anese saying, " If you haven't seen Nikko, 

 you mustn't say marvelous." The shii oak, 

 or Quercus cuspidata, is also chosen for the 

 environs of temples, perhaps because of its 

 dense foliage, and quantities of its acorns 

 are eaten at religious feasts. The beauteous 

 icho, the Ginglco biloba or SaHshuria adianti- 

 folia — also called the maidenhair-tree, from 

 the resemblance of its leaves to the fern of 

 that name — is also a sacred favorite. One 

 at the foot of the staircase of the great tem- 

 ple at Kamakura measures twenty feet roimd. 

 The Japanese consumed the almonds of this 

 tree at religious festivals. And in northern 

 Japan, wherever Shinto prevails, there are 

 hallowed trees encircled with a rice-straw 

 rope which bears tassels at intervals. The 

 Japanese are in the habit of driving nails 

 into the rotesu or Cycas revoluta, which 

 yields the Japanese sago. This, they say, at 

 the present day, is to push on vegetation ; 

 but your thoroughgoing comparative religion- 

 ist is bound to detect in this survival the 

 similar piaculum of the early Latins, records 

 of which can be traced to the four hundred 



