Sept. 13, 1888] 



NA TURE 



467 



elapsed between the short-lived explosion and the sub- 

 mersion of large tracts many miles away from the crater. 

 It must not, however, be supposed that the havoc wrought 

 by the volcano's fury was limited to the fall of disrupted 

 matter, or to the area covered by it. Besides the rain' of 

 scalding earth and mud, heated rocks and stones, sand, 

 and hot softly-falling ashes, there were the awful shocks 

 of the explosion, accompanied by winds or whirlwinds, 

 which every survivor describes as of intense and extra- 

 ordinary vehemence. Nowhere, of course, were the effects 

 of these concomitants more fierce than on the heights of 

 Bandai-san. The forests on the unburied slopes above 

 and near the crater presented a weird spectacle. In 

 these hardly a stick was left standing. As if some giant 

 reaper had mown down whole acres with a sweep of 

 his sickle, the trees lay literally in hundreds on the 

 ground, all felled in a direction away from the crater, 

 stripped of branches, leaves, and even of their bark, 

 and twisted into the most grostesque contortions. 



One day was given to exploring the buried area at its 

 lower levels in the valley of the Nakasegawa, and also 

 the outskirts of the volcanic deluge. At one place, a 

 secondary earth-wave, issuing from the crater by a lateral 

 gap, had rushed swiftly down the mountain-side, burying 

 a large party of grass-cutters and horses, and reaching, 

 but only half destroying, the little hamlet of Mine. Its 

 energy seems to have exactly spent at this point. It was 

 strange to see the great wall of earth and stones, with 

 its vertical face some 7 or 8 feet high, brought up all- 

 standing, as it were, by a frail farm outbuilding. A yet 

 stranger sight was it to see the enormous masses of rock 

 that were strewn about on the surface of the neighbour- 

 ing field of mud. One of them, which was measured, 

 weighed at least 200 tons. Higher up, on the far side of 

 the river, a couple of large villages, in which, though not 

 reached by any mud-stream, not a house was whole, 

 many had been levelled to the ground ; others were 

 tottering on the verge of destruction ; and of the rest, all 

 were cracked, mutilated, unroofed, twisted, tilted up, or 

 otherwise injured or partially wrecked. A scene of more 

 ruthless and utter desolation could hardly be conceived. 

 Beyond this, the route entered upon the great earth-field 

 visible from the heights of Bandai-san. Nothing could 

 convey a more vivid idea of the destructive forces that 

 were let loose upon that doomed region than a sight of 

 the wild chaos of earth, rock, and mud which now reigns 

 over its surface. The whole effect in some places is 

 much as if a raging sea of those materials, on a 

 gigantic scale, had been suddenly congealed and made 

 to stand still. At one spot there is a long mud precipice, 

 said by some observers to be fully 200 feet high. 



Although the little village of Nagasaka was compara- 

 tively uninjured, nearly all its able-bodied inhabitants 

 lost their lives in a manner which shows the extraordinary 

 speed with which the mud-stream flowed. When Little 

 Bandai-san blew up, and hot ashes and sand began to 

 fall, the young and strong fled panic-stricken across the 

 fields, making for the opposite hills by paths well known 

 to all. A minute later came a thick darkness, as of 

 midnight. Blinded by this, and dazed by the falling 

 debris and other horrors of the scene, their steps, prob- 

 ably also their senses, failed them. And before the 

 light returned every soul was caught by a swift bore of 

 soft mud, which, rushing down the valley bed, over- 

 whelmed them in a fate more horrible and not less sudden 

 than that of Pharaoh and his host. None escaped save 

 those who stayed at home— mostly the old and very young. 



From the stories told by the survivors, as well as from 

 his own observations, the writer sketches the following 

 sequence of events connected with the outburst :— 



It seems clear from every account that one of the most 

 terrible features of the catastrophe must have been its 

 appalling suddenness. Though there had been, it is said, 

 slight shocks of earthquake for a couple of days before, 



and, according to some witnesses, strange subterranean 

 rumblings and suspicious variations in the temperature 

 and volume of the hot springs, these caused no grave 

 alarm. Nothing worthy to be called a serious warning 

 occurred until about 7.30 a.m. on the 15th. Then came 

 a violent earthquake, followed a quarter of an hour later 

 by a second, yet more intense. Ten minutes after there 

 ensued throes of such terrible severity that the ground 

 heaved and fell, people were thrown down, and houses 

 demolished or wrecked. To all it seemed that their last 

 hour had come. Instantly upon this arose a fearful noise, 

 described by some as like that of a hundred thunders, by 

 others as the most unearthly sound that ever startled the 

 ears of men. Little Bandai-san was seen to be lifted 

 bodily into the air and spread abroad, and after it 

 leaped forth tongues of flame and dense dark clouds of 

 vapour of ejectamoita. Of the ensuing phenomena it is 

 hard to gain any clear idea from the tales of the distracted 

 survivors. Apparently, however, a quick succession of 

 reports, accompanied by violent earth-throes and winds 

 of hurricane force, lasted for about a minute. Then began 

 the shower of ashes, dust, hot water, and leaves. The 

 light quickly faded as the exploded matter spread over the 

 firmament, so that day was soon changed into night, and 

 did not return for a space of several minutes. Meanwhile, 

 the avalanches of earth and mud must have already done 

 much of their deadly work. The interval between the 

 explosion and the arrival of the mud-torrent which swept 

 past that hamlet cannot have been more than from ten 

 to fifteen minutes. Before the light was restored, all the 

 flower of the village had been swallowed up. How that 

 long journey of some ten miles from the crater had been 

 performed by the mud at such an astonishing speed it is 

 impossible to say. There is evidence that in places the 

 earth-flow lasted for about an hour. But in the above 

 we have the clearest proof that some at least of the 

 destroying matter was hurled over the country at railroad 

 speed, even after being deflected through wide angles 

 from its original line of motion. 



We may, perhaps, hope to learn something hereafter 

 that will throw a clear light on the immediate cause of the 

 explosion (the agent, it cannot be doubted, was steam), on 

 the approximate volume of the projected matter, on the 

 partiality of the effects, and on the many and most be- 

 wildering mysteries connected with the propagation and 

 distribution of the earth-waves, rocks, &c. Meanwhile 

 we hive before us the fact that a massive mountain peak 

 has been blown to bits by an explosion within its bowels 

 powerful enough to toss many hundred millions of tons 

 of material high into the air, and to change the face of 

 nature over an area of some thirty square miles. While 

 whole forests were levelled by the shock, the disrupted 

 matter dammed up rivers, deluged and drowned the land 

 and crops, and buried a dozen hamlets. Earthquakes 

 and coups de vent added their quota to the work of 

 destruction. Nearly 600 people perished by horrible 

 deaths in their mountain homes and valleys. Four times 

 that number have been reduced to destitution or dire 

 poverty. With one possible exception, it is the gravest 

 disaster of its class that has happened, even in that land 

 of volcanoes, since the famous eruption of Asamayama in 

 1783, and it cannot but be ranked among the most startling 

 volcanic explosions of which history has any record. 



It is interesting to know that experts are already at work 

 investigating some of the problems here sketched out by 

 the Times Correspondent, and happily Japan is well pro- 

 vided with experts in the science of seismology, at their 

 head being Prof. Milne, the leading seismologist of the 

 day. Seeing also the countenance given to the study of 

 these phenomena by the Japanese Government, it may be 

 anticipated that no volcanic eruption of modern times 

 will have been so carefully and scientifically investigated 

 as this of Bandai-san, as none has been so graphically 

 and eloquently described. 



