JtTLT 10, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



49 



M. ALBEBT LACBOIX 

 At the meeting of the Paris Academy of 

 Sciences, held June 7, M. Albert Lacroix was 

 elected perpetual secretary for the class of 

 physical and natural sciences, by 37 votes 

 against 22 cast for M. Ternier, his only oppo- 

 nent. This merited honor will afford the 

 greatest satisfaction to the many friends and 

 admirers of Professor Lacroix. Still com- 

 paratively young for a scientific man (he was 

 bom in 1863) M. Lacroix began his special 

 career in the petrographic laboratory of the 

 College de France, and soon published, in col- 

 laboration with M. Michel-Levy, a valuable 

 study entitled : " Les mineraux des roches." 

 His great work " La Mineralogie de la France 

 et des ses Colonies," has just been completed, 

 and ensures to the writer a foremost place 

 among the mineralogists of the world. Spe- 

 cial studies on the granites of the Pyrenees 

 and their contact phenomena, as well as the 

 invaluable records of his investigations when 

 sent in 1902 by the French government as 

 director of the mission to Martinique after 

 the fearful disaster from the eruption of Mont 

 Pelee, constitute additional titles to high con- 

 sideration. In the course of the Martinique 

 expedition, M. Lacroix more than once ex- 

 posed his life in the interests of science, 

 notably on one occasion when, while in the 

 flames of the death-dealing mountain, an 

 emission of poisonous vapor passed within a 

 hundred feet of where he was standing, 

 destroying everything in its passage. Fear- 

 lessly utilizing this terrifying spectacle in the 

 interests of science, the undaunted explorer 

 photographed the phenomena, thus preserving 

 a unique record of the appearance. He has 

 explained that this " burning cloud " was the 

 result of a formidable explosion, that it might, 

 indeed, be regarded as a sort of projectile 

 hurled out by the mountain, half-solid, half- 

 gaseous, of very high temperature, and 

 which in contradistinction to most volcanic 

 emissions of vapor, although thrown up ver- 

 tically into the air, descends upon the slopes 

 of the volcano, under the duplex influence 

 of the initial explosion and of the force of 

 gravity, and sweeps everything before it. Its 



speed often exceeds fifty meters a second, and 

 its convolutions are so dense and closely 

 bound together and its outlines so clearly 

 defined that only a few meters separate the 

 zone of total destruction from that in which 

 nothing is harmed. 



The election of M. Lacroix as a member of 

 the Academy of Sciences in 1904 was a 

 fitting recognition of these and other labors in 

 his special field. In 1906 he was entrusted 

 with another mission for the study of volcanic 

 phenomena, Vesuvius being this time the 

 chosen locality. At present M. Lacroix has 

 the professorship of mineralogy in the Mu- 

 seum d'Histoire Naturelle, and his laboratory 

 in that institution is a favorable resort for 

 all French explorers who are investigating the 

 mineral riches of France or her colonies. The 

 unfailing courtesy and amiability of the dis- 

 tinguished mineralogist contribute not a little 

 to the advantages derived from a visit to the 

 scene of his activity. 



K. 



THE LASSEN EEUPTION 

 A REPORT forwarded to the TJ. S. Geological 

 Survey, Washington, by geologist J. S. Diller 

 reads in part as follows: 



Mount Eainier and Mount Shasta, the 

 beautiful cones so much in evidence to the 

 traveler on the Pacific Coast north of San 

 Francisco, are now finding an up-to-date rival 

 in Lassen Peak, which is plainly in view from 

 the railroad for many miles in the Sacramento 

 Valley between Eedding and Red Bluff. 

 Lassen Peak is the southern end of the Cas- 

 cade Eange, and it stands between the Sierra 

 Nevada on the southeast and the Klamath 

 Mountains on the northwest. Its lavas 

 erupted in past ages reach the Sacramento 

 Valley on the one side and on the other form 

 a part of the vast volcanic field, one of the 

 greatest in the world that stretches far across 

 California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho to 

 the Yellowstone National Park. 



Of all portions of the Cascade Eange Lassen 

 Peak still retains the largest remnant of its 

 on«e vigorous volcanic energy. Morgan and 

 Suppan Hot Springs and Bumpass Hell on 



