140 S. SEKIYA AND Y. KIKUCHI 



In his last communication Mr. Kobayashi says that during the 

 winter the action of rain, water, and snow, has greatly eroded and 

 smoothed down the rugged points, the vertical walls and the precipi- 

 tous hills in and round the crater, reducing them to much gentler 

 inclines, and thus the grandeur and picturesqueness of the scenes 

 have been considerably lost. This fact was confirmed by recent 

 visitors to Bandai-san. From this it may be expected that such a bold 

 scene as that shown in fig. 2, PI. XXI, which is a sketch taken from 

 the western edge of the crater just above Kaminoyu, about 20 days 

 after the eruption, would not be long preserved. 



The Character of the Eruption. 



The explosion of Bandai has furnished us with an example of a 

 volcano, long dormant, bursting with terrific force. So far as we 

 know the last great explosion took place more than ten centuries 

 ago. Some minor eruptions are said to have occurred in subsequent 

 years, but seem to have been of a local character. During the long 

 period of rest, the original crater now known as Xumano-taira, has 

 in large measure lost its crater-like form by the disintegration of the 

 surrounding walls. In such cases it often happens that subsequent 

 eruptions take place at other parts of the mountain, breaking open 

 new chasms along other lines of weakness. Such has indeed been 

 the case with this last eruption of Bandai; the line of weakness lying 

 to the north of the old crater so that the mass of the mountain was 

 thrown toward the north into the Nagase Valley. There is now 

 seen in the new crater a great fissure running X. 20° W. from the 

 bottom of the horseshoe nearly to its mouth. Along this fissure 

 runs a long row of steam jets, large and small, puffing and hissing 

 and emitting immense volumes of white watery vapour. PL XXII 



