February 21, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



189 



Within the past few days word has been re- 

 ceived from Mr. L. W. De Vis-Norton, at Kilauea 

 Volcano, of the remarkable activity of this famous 

 crater. He states that "tremendous changes are 

 in progress at Kilauea, and there is no indication 

 whatsoever of any cessation of the monumental 

 rising of the entire vast lava column. . . . Over 

 the southwest brink, a wide stream of glistening 

 la\"a is sluggishly flowing in the direction of the 

 Ka'u Desert, not with the spectacular cascading 

 torrents of the southeastern flows of last March, 

 but with a steady, stealthy gliding, which gains 

 ground slowly at its face, but which piles up into 

 tremendous masses from its source forward. Upon 

 this southwestern side there is no longer any indi- 

 cation of the Hale-mau-mau Pit." 



A vivid description is given of the lava plateau 

 which has been heaped up over the former pit; 

 "it is in reality a vast tilted roof which has been 

 built entirely over Hale-mau-mau; broken in four 

 or five places by almost circular spatter-walls 

 erected thereon, within whose circumference are 

 lakes, fountaining heavily and flinging molten tor- 

 rents outward over the walls to flow onward over 

 the surface of the roof." 



The effect is a peculiar one, for as the lava seeks 

 the hollows and fills up irregularities, it is pro- 

 ducing an almost perfectly smooth sweep of floor 

 over a mile in circumference. This condition will 

 be stable for several hours, and then, as though 

 the superincumbent weight had become insupport- 

 able, vast sections of the plateau will sink inward, 

 releasing from beneath gigantic torrents of crim- 

 son and orange liquid lava, which surge upward 

 and roar away over the adjacent surfaces, causing 

 them in their turn to collapse and provide more 

 pyrotechnics upon a tremendous scale, and repeat- 

 ing the process over and over again. 



' ' Were it not for the fact that the southwestern 

 overflow is following o most unusual process of 

 damming itself back in walls of its own building 

 as it advances," states Mr. Norton, "we should 

 be witnessing such a torrential discharge of lava 

 as has never been seen at Kilauea within the 

 memory of man." 



It is becoming increasingly evident that the 

 present Hale-mau-mau rise is the usual equinoctial 

 rise upon a greatly magnified scale, due partly to 

 the abnormal squeezing of the Hawaiian fissure 

 system, and to the unusual smallness of the pre- 

 vious fall after the last solstice, wnen the lava 

 column withdrew little more than a hundred feet. 



Starting its upward movement from a mean 

 level some two hundred feet above the normal, it 

 is only natural that the column should have reached 



the pit-rim a full month earlier than was antici- 

 pated. Since the column will, in the ordinary 

 course of events, continue to rise until the time 

 of the equinox in March next, the overflow may be 

 expected to then attain an unprecedented magni- 

 tude. 



A PROPOSED AMERICAN SOCIETY OF 

 MAMMALOGISTS 



A coMjiiTTEE of representative American 

 mammalogists, including men from different 

 parts of the country in its membership, haj 

 recently been at work on plans to organize a 

 society for the promotion of interest in the 

 study of mammalogy. It is intended that the 

 society shall devote itself to the subject in a 

 broad way, including investigations of habits, 

 life hist<jries, evolution and ecology. The 

 plans call for the publication of a journal in 

 which both popular and technical matter will 

 be presented, for holding meetings both gen- 

 eral and sectional, aiding research, and en- 

 gaging in such other activities as may be 

 deemed expedient. It is hoped to secure the 

 active participation of all interested. The 

 organization meeting will be held at the New 

 National Museum, Washington, D. C, April 

 3 and 4, 1919, sessions commencing at 10 : 00 

 .i.ii. and 2 : 00 p.m. No program of papers 

 has been planned for this meeting. The or- 

 ganization committee includes the following: 

 Hartley H. T. Jackson, Chairman, U. S. Bio- 

 logical Survey; Walter P. Taylor, Secretary, 

 F. S. Biological Survey; Glover M. Allen, 

 Boston Society of Natural History; J. A. 

 Allen, American Museum of Natural History; 

 Joseph Grinnell, University of California; 

 N. Hollister, National Zoological Park; 

 Arthur H. Howell, U. S. Biological Survey: 

 Wilfred H. Osgood, Field Museum of Natural 

 History; Edward A. Preble, U. S. Biological 

 Survey; Witmer Stone, Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia. Further informa- 

 tion will be furnished by either the chairman 

 or the secretary, to whom applications for 

 charter membership should be transmitted. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 

 The American Institute of Mining Engi- 

 neers at its meeting in New York on Febru- 



