February 5, 1920] 



NATURE 



595 



zooid. ... In such wise the autotrophic zooid 

 of hif,'^hly differentiated anisokont habit may be 

 visualised as passing on to the initiation of the 

 series of the great marine group of the Phaeo- 

 phyceas." Strange that an old Oxford teacher 

 should have employed for his exposition a medium 

 '^complex beyond the possibilities of human 

 computation." 



Yet if the reader can summon up courage to 

 face the repellent language of this tract he will 

 find suggestions of extraordinary interest. The 

 superiority of the botanist over the zoologist is 

 emphasised; even "a tree is in many respects 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for 

 opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 

 can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 

 the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 

 this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 

 taken of anonymous communications.] 



The Nature of the Katmai Volcanic Gases and 

 Encrustations. 



The fumarole activity followinjj and continuing 

 after the great Katmai eruption of June, 1912, has 

 provided south-western Alaska with the first among 

 the natural wonders of the world. The volcanic gases 



Photo\ 



[/. W. Shipley. 



Pholo\ 



{/. IK Shipley. 



Fig. 



-Fractured S-Ctions of the Great Mud Flow. Note the conglomerate nature of the fragments and the irregular cleavage planes. 

 Sometimes, however, the cleavage is quite regular, as shown in tig. 2. 



more entitled to respectful admiration than a 

 man," unless, we presume, he be a botanist. 



Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily 

 Death. By Frederic W. H. Myers. Edited and 

 abridged by S. B. and L. H. M. Pp. xiii-l-307. 

 (London : Longmans, Green, and Co., 1919.) 

 Price 65. 6d. net. 



The original two-volume work, published in 1903, 

 is abridged by condensing the text and omitting 

 the greater part of the appendices. The illustra- 

 tive cases which are published form part of the 

 text, and are nearly always quoted in full. 



NO. 2623, VOL. 104] 



force their way to the surface over an area of more 

 than fifty square miles. This area is covered with 

 volcanic ash and pumice, largely distributed by an 

 enormous flow of mud following the explosion of 

 the Novarupta volcano, but preceding the outburst of 

 Katmai ten miles to the eastward. The relatively 

 coarse ash and pumice from Novarupta were not 

 ejected to any considerable distance, but, falling 

 locally, quickly melted the snow on the mountains, 

 and, with the rainfall accompanying the eruption, slid 

 down into the adjacent valleys, forming a viscous 

 mass which poured down the Bering Sea slope of 

 the peninsular axis for a distance of more than fifteen 

 miles. 



As the mud drained away, unlike the more fluid water. 



