WATER AND VOLCANIC ACTIVITY.^ 



By Arthur L. Day aud E. S. Shephem).' 



[With 11 plates.] 



green's view that the kilauea emanation is anhydrous. 



In a book.^ now little known and rare, William Lowthian Green, 

 a distinguished Englishman, long in the service of the native govern- 

 ment of the Hawaiian Islands, writes as follows : 



What wo mainly wish to contend for and to impress upon geologists — for 

 reconsideration, at least — is, that it may be a mistake to assert, as is so often 

 done in the most positive manner, that water and steam are inseparably con- 

 nected with volcanic action. On the contrary it would appear that elastic 

 vapors have nothing to do with the liquidity of the Hawaiian basic lavas, and 

 that as a matter of fact they do not seem to come up with them from below, 

 whilst the basic minerals themselves give no indications in the main eruptions, 

 of having been in contact with water, highly susceptible as they are, to such 

 an 4nfluence. 



Mr. Green was not only a keen observer of the manner of operation 

 of the physical forces which participate in the volcanic activity to 

 be seen in the Hawaiian Islands, but his opportunities for studying 

 such phenomena were quite exceptional. His conclusion, supported 

 as it was by many facts of observation, has therefore demanded, and 

 indeed has received, consideration at the hands of geologists gen- 

 erally, although until very lately no one has been willing to consider 

 it as having any application to volcanoes outside Hawaii. 



BRUN maintains THE SAME VIEW. 



More recently Albert Brim, a chemist of Geneva, Switzerland, has 

 offered data* (apparently without Imowing the work of Green) 

 gathered from a great nmnber of active volcanoes with intent to 

 prove by analysis of the gases which he collected that water plays 



1 Reprinted by permission from Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, vol. 24. 

 pp. 573-606, pis. 17-27. Dec. 16. 1913. 

 s Read before the society Dec. 31, 1912. 

 ' Vestiges of the Molten Globe, pt. 2, 1887, p. 82. 

 * Recherches sur I'Eshalaison Volcanique. Geneva, 1911. 



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