122 S. SEKIYA AND Y. KIKUCHI 



has not, as far as we know, been recorded; perhaps it hns never been 

 observed. It must not be forgotten, however, that there would have 

 been no such holes on Bandai-san if there had not been the thick layer 

 of soft loamy soil to receive the falling rocks. 



Mr. E. Odium, of the Toyö Eiwa Gakko (Oriental English 

 school), Tokyo, made a thorough investigation of the origin of the 

 conical holes. He went tw : ice to Bandai, the. second time for the 

 sole purpose of examining the holes, and his observations on the spot 

 were very complete. Indeed, we consider that the facts and proofs 

 brought forward by this observer must be held to settle the ques- 

 tion. In a paper read last autumn before the Seismological Society 

 of Japan, Mr. Odium showed that hundreds of thousand of stones 

 have been hurled into the air from the crater. People were wound- 

 ed and forests were shattered by them. Sometimes fragments 

 of rocks of considerable size were imprisoned on broken trunks of 

 trees. Native mountain rocks had on their upper surface marks and 

 scars made by the stone projectiles. On excavating some of the holes, 

 Mr. Odium found in them imbedded stones, some of which weighed 

 4,000 lbs, or 1,814 kilogrammes. Under these stones grasses, w r eeds, 

 leaves, branches, and other kinds of vegetable materials w r ere some- 

 times discovered, often bruised and shattered till they had the appear- 

 ance of having passed between rollers. Many of the stones fell in a 

 slanting direction ; they were not lodged in the centres of holes, but 

 almost always to one side, that is, the side away from the crater. The 

 earth round the imbedded stones was solid and native — no sign of 

 their having been disturbed by explosive action or the like was found. 

 The whole mountain, the top as well as valleys, was covered with 

 these pits as if it had had a heavy attack of smallpox. To suppose, con- 

 tinues Mr. Odium, that the holes were formed by the spouting action 

 of subterranean water, as is held by some authorities, we must assume 



