SOME FAMOUS EARTHQUAKES 



Some weeks after the Californian earthquake the 

 officers and crew of the U.S. Fish Commission steamer 

 Albatross, while on their way to investigate, with Pro- 

 fessor Charles H. Gilbert, the fisheries of Japan, passed 

 the group of islands known as the Bogoslofs, and to 

 their astonishment perceived that a third island had 

 been added to the other two. Professor Gilbert, in a 

 letter concerning the first sight of the island, on May 

 28th, wrote : " When I saw the Bogoslofs in 1890 there 

 were really two small islands about 1J miles apart, one 

 of them steaming and the other cooled off. This has 

 been the condition for a number of years, so the hot 

 one had received the name of Fire Island, the cold one, 

 Castle Island. When they came in sight yesterday, we 

 were astonished to find that Fire Island was no longer 

 smoking, and that a very large third island had arisen 

 half-way between the other two. It was made of jagged, 

 rugged lava, and was giving off clouds of steam and 

 smoke from any number of little craters scattered all 

 over it. Around these craters the rocks were all crusted 

 with yellow sulphur. The new cone, occupying much 

 of the space between the two older ones, was somewhat 

 higher than either, but was certainly far from 900 feet 

 high 300 feet would be an extreme figure. There was 

 no evidence of a central crater. The steam and fumes 

 were given off most abundantly from cracks and fuma- 

 roles on the slopes. About these were heavy incrusta- 

 tions of sulphur. We saw no indications of boiling 

 water, nor did we believe that landing would be impos- 

 sible." 



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