82 
RECENT VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. 
(Wirs Lantern Views.) 
By J. A. OSBORN. 20th January, 1903. 

Having stated that it was not his intention to say much about 
the general theory of volcanic action, the Lecturer described 
the distribution of volcanoes over the earth’s surface with 
the help of a map. Those which had been active within the 
last thirty years were most fully noticed, and five groups were 
chosen as typical centres of volcanic action:—The Italian 
croup, consisting of Etna, Vesuvius, and the Lipari Islands ; 
the Sandwich Islands, consisting entirely of extinct craters, 
with the active ones of Mauna Loa and Kilauea in Hawaii; 
the Volcanoes of the Eastern Archipelago, in Sumatra, 
Java, and the Celebes, of which the eruption of Krakatoa, 
in August, 18838, afforded the best-known example; the New 
Zealand Volcanoes, with the eruption of Tarawera, in June, 
1886; and the West Indian eruptions of last year. It would 
be difficult to do more than this, as to give a slight sketch of 
recent eruptions in Central America, Alaska, and Japan—all of 
which fully deserve mention--would require not one but a course 
of lectures. 
Of the Italian Volcanoes it may truly be said that they are 
the survivors of a much larger number than history records. 
Like the ‘‘ Maaro’”’ in the Eifel Mountains, the central Italian 
lakes are often only craters of extinct volcanoes filled with 
water. Vesuvius made its appearance as an active crater in 
A.D. 79, when it destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii; it was 
quiet in the Middle Ages, but burst into renewed activity 
in 1681, and has been continually active—at sometimes with 
less violence than others—almost ever since. The great erup- 
tion of 1872 was more closely described. Mount Etna and the 
Lipari Islands had been known as centres of volcanic activity 
from the earliest ages. It seems as if the strength of Htna 
were dying away, as few recent eruptions take place from 
the great crater at the summit of the mountain, but mostly 
from parasitic cones on its flanks. Nine of these became 
active in July, 1892; the eruption lasting nearly three months, 
