November 4, 1897] 



NATURE 



21 



by Dr. Guppy crackled under his hands at night, and he could 

 trace letters on its surface in phosphorescent hues with his 

 linger-nail as he lay completely enveloped in its folds. The 

 ■ tiects of these meteorological conditions soon showed theni- 



Ives in the cessation of the action of the skin, in severe head- 

 ■hes and sore-throat ; in a tendency to palpitation and 

 ilyspnrea, and in sleeplessness, general lassitude and loss of 

 appetite, most of which symptoms were attributed to the great 

 lack of moisture in the air, for when a short spell of damp weather 

 intervened, most of the unpleasant symptoms disappeared. 

 An interesting phenomenon was observed every morning and 

 evening. For about twenty minutes after sunrise and before 

 sunset the shadow of the mountain was thrown back against the 

 sky of the opposite horizon. It seemed as if some artist had been 

 at work on the sky far away, and had painted in the profile of 

 ihe mountain with a very uncanny blue. 



Dr. Guppy's observations on the relative humidity have yet to 

 he worked out, but he remarks that there was occasionally as 

 much as a difference of 20° between the wet and dry bulb 

 thermometers, the usual difference being 10° to 15°. The lowest 

 temperature recorded at night was 15° F. , and the minimum 

 reading was usually below 20^. The average minimum tempera- 

 ture for the period, August 9 to 31, was 23° 5. The highest 

 temperature of the air in the shade was 6i^'2, the average 

 maximum daily being 53° 6, which places the average difference 

 between the night and day temperature at 30°. This great daily 

 range is about twice what it is at the coast. 



State of the Crater. 



In order to familiarise himself with the principal features of 

 the crater. Dr. Guppy adopted the method of making a rough 

 plan of it with a pocket prismatic compass. In some places the 

 lava crust was thin and fragile, and although he never descended 

 further than his waist, there was always in such localities a chance 

 of a sudden descent into a cavern of considerable depth. 



His descent into the crater was made on the north-west side. 

 It was a tedious operation, and the loose boulders had to be 

 trodden on very carefully, as they are often inclined to roll 

 down and crush the intruder. As soon as Dr. Guppy reached 

 near the centre of the great pit the clouds began to pour in on 

 all sides over the lips of the crater. In a few minutes he was 

 enveloped in a dense mist, and any further observation was 

 rendered impracticable. During the prevailing dry clear weather 

 with a cloudless sky, "smoke" is only evident in two places in 

 the crater, one near the centre and the other in the south- 

 west corner from the base of a yellowish cliff, where there are" 

 apparently extensive deposits of sulphur. When, however, the 

 sky is clouded, and especially when the air is moist, white 

 vapour may be seen arising from the greater part of the surface 

 of the crater. The change is a little startling, the true explana- 

 tion being that a large amount of the vapour evolved is only 

 visible in cloudy murky weather. It is, therefore, possible 

 that the accounts of two observers may vary greatly as to 

 the crater's condition, and yet no diflerence in the con 

 tliiion actually exist. This especially applies to the dis- 

 trict on the south and south-west borders of the crater, 

 stretching about a mile to the southward. In cloudy weather 

 white vapour arises from many places in this area. In the bright 

 clear weather that prevails the visitor may see nothing, and even 

 walk unwittingly over numerous cracks and fissures whence the 

 invisible vapour is being discharged. Dr. Guppy look the tem- 

 perature of several of these fissures. In those where the vapour 

 was only seen in cloudy weather the temperature was about 

 104' F. When the " smoke " is always visible the temperature is 

 far higher, 160° F. and over. Many of these cracks and fissures 

 exhibit evidence of having originally given passage to vapours 

 at a very high temperature. The subterranean heat appears now 

 more actively displayed in the district extending a mile to the 

 south of the big crater than in the crater itself. A very large 

 amount of vapour is discharged from the borders of a small crater 

 lying near Pohaku Hanalei, and this is probably the smoke some- 

 times observed from the Kona coast. It is probable that the 

 next eruption will occur on this, the south south-west slope of 

 . the mountain. 



Insect Life: on the Sum.mit. 

 Curiously enough, insects of various descriptions are common 

 on the summit. One species of butterfly common at the coast 

 is not at all infrequent. The butterflies were more often to be 

 found dead than alive, and those flying about were in a half- 

 drowsy condition and easily caught. There were flies of 

 different kinds, the house-fly and the blue-bottle-fly proving a 



KO. 1462, VOL. 57] 



great nuisance. Besides these there were moths, bees, gnats, 

 and an occasional dead dragon-fly; whilst bugs and other in- 

 sects were collected as they fed upon the bodies of the dead 

 butterflies. These insects were more common when the wind 

 was southerly, and no doubt they had been brought up to this 

 absolutely sterile region by the wind. Evidently most if not all 

 of the butterflies and moths soon die, and probably the other in- 

 sects too. The whole matter is, however, very suggestive, and 

 shows how readily insects (even the parasitical bug) may find 

 their way into the upper air-currents. 



PALESTINE EXPLORATION} 



"T^IIE object of exploration is to obtain accurate knowledge of 

 a country, its inhabitants, and its extant monuments and 

 texts. That of Palestine has special interest to Christian races 

 and to Jews, as serving to explain more clearly the sacred 

 literature of their faith. 



The results of such exploration may be judged by looking 

 back a century to the time of Bayle, Voltaire and Astruc, when 

 what was regarded as advanced scientific work assumed that the 

 Hebrews were a savage race without literature, that history only 

 began to be written about 500 B.C., and that the oldest civilisa- 

 tion was that of China and India. It is now known that the 

 art of writing was practised in Egypt and Chaldea as early as 

 3000 B.C., that the Canaanites about the time of Joshua had a 

 civilisation equal to that of surrounding nations, as had also the 

 Hebrew kings ; while, on the other hand, Chinese civilisation 

 is only traceable to about 800 B c. , and that of India was 

 derived from the later Persians, Arabs and Greeks. These 

 results are due solely to exploration. 



The requirements for exploration demand a knowledge not only 

 of Syrian antiquities but of those of neighbouring nations. It is 

 necessary to understand the scripts arid languages in use, and to 

 study the original records as well as the art and architecture of 

 various ages and countries. Much of our information is derivecf. 

 from Egyptian and Assyrian records of conquest, as well as from 1 

 the monuments of Palestine itself As regards scripts, the earliest 

 alphabetic texts date only from about 900 B.C., but previous to 

 this period we have to deal with the cuneiform, the Egyptian, 

 the Hittite and the Cypriote characters. The explorer must 

 know the history of the cuneiform from 2700 B c. down to the 

 Greek and Roman age, and the changes which occurred in the 

 forms of some 550 characters originally hieroglyphics, but finally 

 reduced to a rude alphabet by the Persians, and used not only in. 

 Babylonia and Assyria but also as early as 1500 B.C. in Asia 

 Minor, Syria, Armenia, Palestine, and even by special scribes in 

 Egypt. He should also be able to read the various Egyptian 

 sciipts — the 400 hieroglyphics of the monuments, the hieratic, 

 or running hand of the papyri, and the later demotic. The 

 Hittite characters are quite distinct, and number at least 130 

 characters, used in Syria and Asia Minor from 1500 B.C., or 

 earlier, down to about 700 B.C. The study of these characters 

 is in its infancy. The syllabary of Cyprus was a character 

 derived from these Hittite hieroglyphics, and used by the 

 Greeks about 300 B.C. It includes .some fifty characters, and 

 was probably the original system whence the Phoenician alphabet 

 was derived. As regards alphabets, the explorer must study 

 the early Phoenician, and the Hebrew, Samaritan and Moabite, 

 with the later Aramean branch of this alphabet, whence square 

 Hebrew is derived. He must also know the Ionian alphabet, 

 whence Greek and Roman characters arose, and the early Arab, 

 scripts — Palmyrene, Nabathean and Sabean, whence are derived, 

 the Syriac, Cufic, .Arabic and Himyaritic alphabets. 



As regards languages, the scholars of the last century had ta 

 deal only with Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Coptic and Greek, 

 but as the result of exploration we now deal with the Ancient 

 Egyptian whence Coptic is derived, and with various languages 

 in cuneiform script, including the Akkadian (resembling pure 

 Turkish) and the allied dialects of Susa, Media, Armenia and of 

 the Hittites ; the Assyrian, the earliest and most elaborate of 

 Semitic languages ; and Aryan tongues, such as the Persian, the 

 Vannic and the Lycian. 



The art and architecture of Western Asia also furnishes much 

 information as to religious ideas, customs, dress and history, 

 including inscribed seals and amulets, early coins and gems. 

 The explorer must also study the remains of Greek, Roman, 

 Arab and Crusader periods, in order to distinguish these from 

 the earlier remains of the Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, 



1 A discourse at the Royal Institution by Lieut. Colonel C. R. Conder. 



