135 



Mr. Lyman estimated the original fountain crater to be at an 

 elevation of about 9,000 feet above the sea. It would appear 

 that the original outbreak was from the whole length of a fissure 

 opening on the side of tlie mountain from the summit to the base, 

 the first jet (January 23) being from the upper end of the fissure. 

 As the force of the eruption subsided, the upper end of the fissure 

 appears to have become clogged, so that the lava flowed only from 

 the lower end and margin ; in this way he accounts for the for- 

 mation of successive cones, or active craters, one below the other, 

 on the side of the mountain. During the first three weeks, the 

 lava flowed in an open channel down the mountain till it reached 

 the plateau at the base ; but after this the fountain jet ceased to 

 play with its primitive activity, the crater became clogged, the 

 lava stream cooled on the surface for about half a mile from the 

 original source, and at that point of emergence another cone was 

 formed by the lava as it bubbled up from the end of the pyro- 

 duct that had been formed over the upper end of the flow. 



The same process was repeated, the second orifice becoming 

 partially obstructed, and a covered archway forming itself over 

 the stream for a short distance below ; by the middle of March a 

 covered pyroduct had been (brmed over almost the whole of the 

 lava stream. The lava does not appeal- to have flowed into the sea 

 after the first week in February, but was dispersed by a network 

 of innumerable streams traversing at random the great central 

 plateau of the island. The amount of lava ejected has scarcely 

 diminished from the first, though the fountain only plays at occa- 

 sional intervals. The whole course of the eruption is like those 

 of previous years. 



Dr. C. T. Jackson read a letter from Mr. J. H. Blake, 

 from Brandon, Vt., giving some further details about the 

 frozen well, and containing a full thermometric table for 

 that town at all seasons, from 1853 to the present time. 



He also read a letter from Prof. J. Brocklesby with 

 reference to the frozen well at Owego, N. Y., and other 

 cold wells at different places. 



Dr. White presented, in the name of Dr. Durkee, the 

 upper portion of a human ulna, incrusted with a stalacti- 



