498 Rev. M. Frater — Volcanic Eruption, Ambry m Island. 



hidden in many places, underneath a wealth of tropical vegetation, 

 stood the Presbyterian Mission Station, with its commodious and 

 well-appointed hospital. The site was one of the beauty spots of the 

 New Hebrides Islands. The hills around were covered with the 

 luxuriant vegetation of the tropics. Adorning the extensive clearing 

 which encircled the mission station, were wide-spreading banyan- 

 trees which had weathered the storms of centuries. Little did the 

 promoters of the Medical Mission imagine that they were building- 

 over a slumbering volcano. Beyond the shape of the valley, which 

 was undoubtedly crateriform, there was nothing to indicate that 

 underneath the calm and luxuriance of external nature the forge of 

 Vulcan was being set up. In the light of recent events there can be 

 no doubt that the station was standing in the crater of an old volcano ; 

 but it showed no trace of any recent eruption, and among the natives 

 no memory of any such catastrophe survived in the traditions of the 

 district. Countless generations, too, must have elapsed in the 

 populating of the crowded villages which thronged the district, 

 and in Captain Cook's day the population was greater than it now is. 

 The symbolism and system of sorcery which had grown around the 

 native mythology was more intricate and subtle than that which 

 flourished in most of the other islands, and pointed to a long 

 succession of ages since fire had visited the district. 



In December, 1913, the age-long sleep of the extinct volcanoes 

 near Mount Benbow was broken, and from numerous thunder- 

 throated vents the island was torn and rent with convulsive 

 explosions. The eruption was heralded by a series of premonitory 

 earthquake shocks. One of them, which occurred about a month 

 before the outbreak, was the most severe in the memory of the 

 natives. Immediately preceding the eruption, the shocks increased 

 in frequency and severity until the solid earth reeled and tottered. 

 The hospital buildings rocked like a ship at sea. The natives, in 

 their manner of speech, said that Ambryni danced. Then there was 

 seen to rise from the extinct craters a dense cloud which shot up into 

 the air and spread out in all directions like a gigantic mushroom. 

 Tremendous explosions followed each other in rapid succession. 

 Blacker and larger grew the cloud until it lay like a London fog 

 over the entire island. The erupting volcanoes followed the line 

 of volcanic weakness. Beginning at the extinct craters in the centre 

 of the island, the line maintained a westerly direction and every few 

 miles a new volcano burst out. From the neighbouring island of 

 Paama, where an unobstructed view of the eruption was obtained, 

 its rise and progress could be watched. In one place which seemed 

 to be a centre of disturbance, six volcanoes had formed within a short 

 distance of each other. During the night the track of the red-hot 

 lava could be seen like the trail of a serpent. Every outbreak 

 brought the eruptions appi'eciably nearer the hospital until in the 

 early morning, twelve hours after the first outbreak, the advancing 

 flare could be seen behind the hills which encircled the Mission 

 Station. At daybreak a dense black cloud was seen about a mile 

 behind the station, but the hospital staff imagined that the bush had 

 been set on fire by a lava stream. "While they "were watching it, 



