VULCANOLOGY AND SEISMOLOGY. 293 



to Oshima (p. 78), wliere he had an opportunity of looking down into 

 the open crater of an active volcano, which was at the time belching 

 forth masses of molten lava to a height far above the point where he 

 stood. A map is given on which are marked one hundred and twenty- 

 nine mountains of volcanic origin, twenty-three being in the Kurile Isl- 

 ands. Of this number, fifty-one are active, sixteen being in the Kuriles 

 and eleven in Yezo. Of the whole, thirty-nine are symmetrically formed 

 cones, showing a more or less close approximation to the theoretical 

 outline deduced by Milue in the Geological Magazine and by Becker in 

 the American Journal of Science, III, xxx, 283-293. From several con- 

 siderations the author infers that the volcanoes of the Kuriles are of 

 more recent formation than those of Japan. 



Asama Yama is an active volcano about 75 miles northwest of Tokio, 

 Japan, rising to 8,800 feet above sea-level. The depth of its crater be- 

 ing estimated by visitors all the way from 2,000 feet down to 500 feet. 

 Professor Milne, with a party of assistants, attempted to measure this 

 depth by a sounding line passed through a ring on a rope which was 

 stretched across the crater. His measures, which were, however, not 

 entirely successful, indicate the depth to be about 750 feet. (Nature, 

 XXXV, 152.) 



The volcano of Barren Island and the island of Narcondam in the 

 Bay of Bengal were visited and surveyed by Capt. J. li. Elobday and F. 

 R. Mallet, whose observations are published in the Memoirs of the Geo- 

 logical Survey of India. Barren Island is circular in shape, with a 

 diameter of 2 miles. The main crater is elliptical, measuring IJ by 1 

 mile, with walls varying in "height from 1,158 feet on the southeast to 

 nothing on the northwest. The inner cone, about half a mile in diameter 

 at the base, rises 1,015 feet, terminating in a small elliptical crater 300 

 by 190 feet in measurement, from which steam and smoke issued. The 

 outer slopes of the main crater, if prolonged, would meet above the 

 apex of the inner cone, from which it is inferred that this outer cone 

 was once complete, and that its upper pait has been removed by an ex- 

 plosion similar to that of Krakatoa. (Nature, xxxiii, 489.) 



On the authority of Junghuhn it has been believed that within his- 

 toric times the volcanoes of Java have thrown out only solid matter and 

 not lava. But observations on recent eruptions there, made by Kerr 

 Fennema, an engineer of Buitenzorg, show that in April, 1885, a stream 

 of lava appeared on the southeastern side of Smeru which forced the 

 residents of plantations below to flee, and caused some loss of life 

 by avalanches of stones started by the stream. At the same time 

 Lemongan also threw out a lava stream, but of a basaltic character, 

 while that from Smeru was andesitic. (Nature, xxxiv, 224.) 



Comj)ariug with the eruption from Krakatoa that at the island Ferdi- 

 nandea in 1831, A. Ricco remarks that at the latter i^lace large quanti- 

 ties of vapor were projected into the air to a height comparable with that 

 attributed io the emanations from Krakatoa, but, owing to the fact that 



