THE GREAT ]:RUrTION OF SAKUBA-JIMA IN 1914. 137 



nortlicni foot of the latter. The region as a whole is unstable and 

 settling at a rapid rate. 



Lastly, Mr. Kazuno, the efficient director of the meteorological 

 observatory of Kagoshima, warned people up to the very moment 

 of eruption that the epicentre of the incessant earthquakes was in 

 the above-mentioned flat of Yoshino (Geologic Map). This the 

 seismometer indicated to liim and he kept persistently and boldly 

 to his assertion, though the public would not believe him. 

 Finally, the excited people of the afflicted Kagoshima region spread 

 malignant gossip about liim without cause. As will be seen on 

 the Geologic Map, the Yoshino plateau is an uncompensated area 

 constantly sinking down to adjust local equilibrium. The crypto- 

 volcanic earthquakes of the Sakura-jima eruption may have 

 strongly agitated the Yoshino plateau, as his reliable seismometer 

 led him to believe. 



We are now enabled to approach a step further in tracing the 

 cause and effect of the local isostatic vulcanism, displayed at Sakura- 

 jima in the escape of gases and extravasation of lava of 3,012 

 mihion tons and an indefinite quantity of éjecta, in the geologic 

 rift-valley bay of Kagosliima. 



YÜi. The Yentholes.— .VU the scientists, home as well as foreign, 

 who were in tlic field and studied the nature of the district, came 

 to the inevitable conclusion that the lava effusion of 1779 on the 

 southwestern and northeastern flanks of Sakura-jima occurred 

 along the fracture that runs through from Kirishima to the volcanic 

 chain of Ryûkyû, and the recent vents lie on a line wliich cuts the 

 former at right-angles. (See Geologic Map and Text-fig. 10 c.) What 

 is stated above well agrees with the current dogma that volcanoes 

 sit upon the intersecting point of tectonic lines, as we are ac- 

 customed to find delineated on maps of Ischia, Krakatoa, and Hawaii. 



