April 3, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



553 



of the opportunity for judicious exercise the 

 question would be an open one for the physical 

 educator, but we are not speaking of all ath- 

 letes. Only those who make the teams are 

 subject to the strenuous requirements thereof 

 and they, as a class, need the exercise and 

 stimulus the least. The application of a 

 scholarship rule to keep up the standard of 

 scholarship then seems to us beyond a ques- 

 tion desirable. What its effect may be is to 

 be seen in Chart I., where the line of average 

 scholarship in athletics rises about up to, and 

 once above the general college average. 



None of these sports, in our opinion, is it 

 wise to abolish: they are too valuable. The 

 responsibility is upon the faculties of our edu- 

 cational institutions to control them. 



The number of intercollegiate or inter- 

 echolastic games may be reduced, the trips cut 

 down, or the varsity season deferred so as to 

 last but a month and promote dissemination of 

 sports, in the way suggested by Mr. Derby in a 

 recent Outlooh, but the most potent regulation 

 is through scholarship rules. 



The raising of these standards is in the 

 hands of the faculty; it does not take great 

 mentality, but plain old-fashioned courage to 

 do this. If each of our colleges and schools 

 would set and maintain such high standards 

 for itself that any league agreements would 

 be well outside them, then the educational 

 ideals would be preserved. 



Paul C. Philups 



THE SO-CALLED VOLCANO IN THE SANTA 



MONICA MOUNTAINS, NEAR LOS 



ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 



The California papers have recently con- 

 tained accounts of a so-called volcano in one 

 of the canyons of the Santa Monica Moun- 

 tains near Los Angeles. Reports of a similar 

 kind have frequently been made heretofore 

 with reference to points in Santa Barbara 

 County, where fire has started in the petro- 

 leum-bearing shale near the surface; and the 

 fire recently observed in the Santa Monica 

 Mountains is due to the same cause. Occur- 

 rences of this kind have been described in a 

 recent article in the Journal of Geology^ 



' " Metamorphism by Combustion of the Hydro- 



Mr. H. E. Johnson, of the TJ. S. Geological 

 Survey, now stationed at Los Angeles, visited 

 the locality of the Santa Monica occurrence 

 March 3, and the following notes concerning 

 it were obtained at the time of this examina- 

 tion. 



The " volcano " is situated about 200 yards 

 up Pulgas Canyon from the ocean, two and 

 one half miles northwest of Santa Monica, 

 and about fifteen miles west-northwest of Los 

 Angeles. Here a little point of Monterey 

 (middle Miocene) shale jutting into the creek 

 exhibits several small openings, from which 

 very strong sulphurous fumes, light bluish- 

 gray in color, are issuing. At distances of 

 from six inches to a foot or more from the 

 surface in the vicinity of these holes the shale 

 is at a duU cherry-red heat, the temperature 

 being high enough to immediately ignite bits 

 of wood forced into it. The ground, which is 

 here covered by shale fragments and small 

 amounts of humus for a radius of 75 or 100 

 feet around this group of openings, is un- 

 comfortably hot for the feet and at some 

 places is too hot for even a momentary con- 

 tact with the hand. At one point an oily 

 condensation, which smelt like hot asphalt, 

 was noted. 



The shales show an interesting progressive 

 discoloration which will be described, begin- 

 ning at the outer edge of the area of altera- 

 tion. Normally of a dirty yellowish-gray 

 calcareous phase, they are fijst blackened by 

 the heat, then given that intense peach-blow 

 red which is to be seen in all of those locali- 

 ties in the Santa Maria oil district and else- 

 where at which this peculiar type of meta- 

 morphism has taken place, while the last stage 

 of oxidation seems to result in a crumbling 

 greenish-gray ashy material. The finding of 

 fragments of scoriaceous shale at the burnt 

 area has recently been reported, but the writer 

 saw none personally. Neither did he see any 

 bursts of flame, which it is said have been 

 seen at the locality, although it is very likely 

 that such might be visible at night, 

 carbons in the Oil-bearing Shale of California," 

 by Ralpli Arnold and Eobert Anderson, Journal 

 of Oeology, Vol. 15, No. 8, November-December, 

 1907. 



