532 Professor J. W. Gregory — The Ambry m Eruptions, 



also on the 21st visited Mt. Marurn. He described it as a perfect 

 crater 1 mile east and west by three-quarters of a mile north and 

 south, with very steep walls and a pool of water in the centre. It 

 was therefore not active, but steam was rising from the small crater 

 on the eastern side. Later eruptions of this series occurred at 

 "Volcano", which was seen in eruption at the end of December, 

 1894, by the French man-of-war Scorjf, and another eruption, 

 apparently at the western end of the island, happened on February 10, 

 1895 (Purey-Cust, 1896, pp. 17, 18). The 1894 eruptions appear 

 to have occasioned an uprise of 1 or 2 feet of the ground around Dip 

 Point (Purey-Cust, 1896, pp. 21-2). 



Admiral Purey-Cust concludes that this series of eruptions were 

 confined to an approximately east and west line passing through 

 Mt. Benbow, Fo-luk, and the western end of the island. At the 

 north-eastern part of Ambryni even the earthquakes were slight, 

 while neither the flow nor temperature of the hot springs on the 

 northern and southern coasts was altered. Moreover, not only was 

 Mt. Benbow active, while its neighbour, Mt. Marum, remained 

 quiescent, but the two vents in the crater of Benbow, although only 

 a few yards apart, seemed to lead from entirely different sources. 

 Die attributed the western eruptions to lava, finding no outlet in the 

 centre of the island, having burst from the fissure where it traversed 

 the lower ground at the western end. 



4. The Features of the 1913 Eruption. 

 (a) The Explosion Trough. 



The 1894 eruption was followed by nineteen years of comparative 

 quiescence, though the vents on Mt. Benbow generally discharged 

 clouds of steam. In December, 1913, a paroxysmal eruption followed 

 on generally similar lines to the eruption of 1894, though with some 

 more disastrous and remarkable effects. Mr. Frater's account shows 

 that it began with a series of paroxysmal explosions followed by the 

 emission of lava from a series of vents on an east and west line. 

 The most dramatic episode of this eruption was the explosion which, 

 like a mine, blew up the Mission Hospital of Lon-wol-wol. Admiral 

 Purey-Cust (1896, p. 6) described the depression to the south of 

 Dip Point, on the north-eastern side of Mmnei Peak (1,245 feet), as 

 a distinct old crater ; he said it was half a mile in diameter, with an 

 almost flat floor covered by scrub, bounded by perpendicular sides, 

 and open, however, to the north. The new edition of the Admiralty 

 Chart of Ambrym shows this crater better defined, for the breach on 

 the north has been repaired. The main eruption of 1913 occurred 

 to the north of this old crater on the plain formerly occupied by the 

 Mission Station. 



The chief line of modern volcanic activity on Ambrym through 

 Volcano, Mts. Marum and Benbow, trends to the west-north-west, 

 and if continued in that course beyond Fo-luk would pass under the 

 site of the mission. The hospital was hurled into the air by an 

 explosion just as that at Tarawera in New Zealand in 1886 blew up 

 the Pink and White Terraces and scattered their fragments over the 



