2i}2 EECOKD OF SCIENCE FOR 1886. 



Gounect the eruption of Nina Foou with that in New Zealand in June, 

 1886, rather than with the Charleston earthquake. (Am. Jour. Sci., 



XXXIII, 311.) 



The new volcanic island which appeared in October, 1885, near the 

 Island of Tonga, is pictured from photograph in Vol. XL, Proc. Rojal 

 Soc, Loudon. The island when visited in November, 1885, was about 

 2 miles long and 200 feet high. 



In connection with the report of Dr. Johnston Lavis to the British As- 

 sociation (1886) on the volcanic i)henomena of Vesuvius, the fourth sheet 

 of the geological map of Monte Somma and Vesuvius was exhibited at 

 the meeting. It distinguishes in detail the lava flows of difl'erent dates. 

 The report states that unusual opportunities of studying the subterra- 

 nean structure of the volcanic region about Naples are just now afforded 

 by the construction of the sewer from Naples to the Giflf of Gaeta, by 

 certain borings near the temple of Jupiter Serapis, and by the construc- 

 tion of the Cumana Eailway from Najiles to Baia and Fusaro. (Nature, 



XXXIV, 481.) 



At the meeting of the London Geological Society February 19, 1886, 

 Dr. Johnston Lavis received an award from the Barlow-Jameson Fund 

 " in recognition of his past labors and in furtherance of future work in 

 the vicinity of Naples." (Nature, xxxiii, 503.) 



The volcanic phenomena of central Madagascar are described by K. 

 Baron in Nature (xxxiii, 415). The volcanoes described, all now ex- 

 tinct and none so much as 1,000 feet high, lie in two districts, one fifty 

 or sixty miles w^est and the other seventy or eighty miles southwest of 

 Antananarivo, the capital. It is stated that scarcely a year passes with- 

 out one or more slight earthquake shocks in central Madagascar. Ex- 

 tinct volcanoes and thermal springs are said to exist in other parts of 

 the island, but little is known of them. 



In a paper before the British Association (1886) on the geysers of 

 New Zealand, E. W. Bucke gives observations on an extinct geyser, into 

 the tube of which he was^et down. He found that this tube, at 13 feet 

 from the surface, opened into a chamber 15 feet long, 8 feet broad, and 

 9 feet high, from one end of which chamber another tube led downward 

 to an unknown depth. His observations also indicate a connection be- 

 tween the activity of the geysers and the direction of the wind. (Na- 

 ture, xxxiv, 512.) 



In the second part of the ninth volume Transactions of the Seismolo- 

 gical Society of Japan, Professor John Milne has published an account 

 of the volcanoes of that country. The account is mainly descriptive 

 and historical, the material being drawn from a number of Japanese 

 works, a considerable portion of them being in manuscript. The infor- 

 mation thus gathered from previous writers is supplemented by ex- 

 tended personal observations by, the author himself in frequent journeys 

 made for the puri)ose during his residence for a dozen years or more in 

 Japan. Among these personal experiences may be mentioned his visit 



