248 NOTES AND COMMENTS [ocroBER 
We are still labouring for the advancement of science, for the dis- 
covery of new truth. The field, which is the world, was never so 
white unto the harvest as now, but it is still early morning on the dial 
of science.” The address was not a remarkable one, but we commend 
this last sentence to the attention of those who speak as if it were 
already late afternoon. 
Eruption of Mauna Loa. 
In the American Journal of Science for September some account is 
given of the beginning of an eruption of the volcano of Mauna Loa, on 
Hawaii. 
Early in the morning of 4th July, one observer says, “an immense 
column of smoke and steam was seen rising from the crater of 
Mokuaweoweo. It was pierced through with the light from the fires 
beneath, until it glowed and shone like a column of fiery light, 
resplendent beyond description, and reflecting its burning glow over 
the whole heavens. The column seemed to be at least five miles in 
diameter, and rose to a tremendous height. On Tuesday the column 
of fire had disappeared. In place of it was the equally impressive 
glow of the lava as it broke from the lower side of the crater several 
thousand feet lower down than the column of light had been, and was 
thrown upward to a wonderful height by the forces which were in 
action. On either side of the stream, whose surface of fiery red could 
be seen like a line of glowing molten metal, were two cones which had 
formed since the eruption began. It was from these that the lava was 
being ejected. It was thrown up in fiery cascades high in the air. 
These cascades, in falling, built up the cones, and the molten lava 
running off from these formed the stream flowing off towards Hilo. 
It would be hard to say how high these cones were, perhaps somewhere 
between 500 and 1000 feet high, and half a mile in diameter, and 
five miles apart.’ A later account mentions three lava streams, one in 
the direction of Hilo, another off through Kau to the south-east, and a 
third towards the crater of Kilauea. 
The journal from which we have cited the above also calls atten- 
tion to a paper by Mr. C. J. Lyons, of Honolulu, on “ Sun Spots and 
Hawaiian Volcanoes,” published in the April number of the Monthly 
Weather Review. The author gives a table of the years of minimum 
sun spots for the past century, with the dates of prominent volcanic 
eruptions of Kilauea or Mauna Loa, showing a striking correspondence 
between the times of the two phenomena. As pointed out by the 
editor of the Review, however, a more thorough investigation is needed 
to prove that the coincidence noted is due to a real causal connection. 
