34 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Sept. 2S, iS 



of a volcano than there are in Kent or the Catskills ; 

 t*:en suddenly our leaders stopped short. We looked 

 about us ; there was a smell of sulphur in the 

 air ; the leaves at our side were coated with im- 

 palpable grey ashes ; and there, within a few steps, was 

 a small crater twenty feet wide, a conical hole blown out 

 as though a hundred pound shell had exploded under- 

 ground. The first burst had of course exhausted the 

 slight volcanic energy at this point, and the bottom of 

 the craterkin was entirely closed. Curiously enough, 

 too, the explosion had been in a lateral direction, trees 

 and shrubs having been blown away, and those left half 

 buried in mud, while a fine tree directly over head was 

 not only uninjured, but not even bespattered. It was 

 only a small affair, but it was our first sight of the actual 

 operation of the volcanic forces of nature, the most 

 mysterious and dreadful forces that man knows, and a 

 thrill ran through us as We stood around the mud hole. 



Then we resumed our climb and half a mile more 

 brought us to the midst of the volcanic activity. In every 

 direction were crater-like holes of different sizes; the 

 trees had been twisted off, and split and buried and 

 hurled about; five Cor six inches of sticky grey mud 

 covered everything; we sank ankle-deep in it at every 

 step, and ever}' now and then, as we still climbed, one 

 of the party would struggle back as he found himself 

 sinking deeper, and shout a warning to the rest to avoid 

 the dangerous spot. Pools bf-dgrk yellow sulphurous 

 water, small lakes some of them, had been formed wher- 

 ever the soil was flat enough for water to rest, and of all 

 the bright turf and foliage which had beautified the spot a 

 few days before, not a single blade or square inch of 

 green was left. It would be impossible — so, at least, we 

 thought then — to imagine a more complete picture of 

 utter desolation than this grey and stinking wilderness, 

 all the more terrible that the form of landscape was 

 vaguely preserved in it, just as a mutilated corpse is the 

 more horrible because it cannot mask entirely the 

 graciousness of the living body. Silently and labori- 

 ously, panting and perspiring, we plod upwards, watch- 

 ing every heavy step. We are in Isingle file, a guide 

 leading, and I am third in the line. > Surely we cannot 

 get much higher, for the mountain seerjns to end abruptly 

 just above us. The guide is on the top, the man behind 

 Jiim struggles up, seeking a place for his feet. Then, as 

 he railses his head, his body being half above the edge, 

 he steeps short like a man shot, and slowly and in an awe- 

 strick/en tone the words fall from his lips — "Gooi God ! " 

 "IhoE/e of us below shout to him to pass on, and in 

 irresistible excitement and curiosity we scramble up 

 anyhow. 



W e found ourselves standing upon the ragged edge of 

 what was left of the mountain of Bandai-san, after two- 

 thirds of it, including of course the summit, had been 

 literally blown away and spread over the face of the 

 country. Or, to employ the terminology of geometry, 

 th^'original cone of the mountain had been truncated at 

 ah acute angle to its axis, and we were standing upon 

 'the flattened apex of the resulting cone. It must be 

 borne in mind, of course, that we had of necessity ap- 

 proached the focus of the eruption from behind, the 

 volcanic energy having exerted itself laterally and not 

 vertically. From our very feet a precipitous mud slope 

 fell away for half a mile or more till it reached the level : 

 at our right, still below us, rose a mud wall a mile long, 

 also sloping down to the level, and behind it was 

 evidently the crater, for great clouds and gusts cf steam 



were pouring over it; beneath us on our left was a little 

 table-land of mud, on which a few pools had formed. 

 But before us, for five miles in a straight line, and en 

 each side nearly as far, was a sea of congealed mud, 

 broken up into ripples and waves and great billows, and 

 bearing upon its bosom, like monstrous ships becalmed 

 upon the fantastic ocean of some cyclopean nightmare, a 

 thousand huge boulders, weighing many hundred of tons 

 apiece. The sunlight was reflected in weird tints from 

 the pools and lakes ; one larger lake was all that was left 

 of a river buried at a blow ; where the mud had been 

 coated with ashes it was of a dull grey tint, elsewhere in 

 spots it was dark red ; on one side of this awful expanse, 

 a couple of miles away from us, a stretch of bright green 

 meadows sparkled in the sun ; on the other a dark pine 

 forest showed how the sea of mud had rolled up to its 

 foot and actually stopped there, almost touching the 

 trunks of the trees ; and straight in front of us, five 

 miles away, we could just discern an exit into a long 

 green valley behind which again rose the mountains, 

 range upon range. 



( To be continued.) 



MUSEUMS AND THEIR ARRANGE- 

 MENT. 



/^UR contemporary, Humboldt, gives a very interesting 

 ^^ summary of a memoir on this subject by F. W. 

 Haacke. Leaving on one side collections of artificial pro- 

 ducts, he distinguishes four orders of true museums, in 

 each of which he proposes a separation of the collections 

 for scientific research from those intended for popular 

 instruction. The popular department would consist of 

 two main divisions. The first of these divisions would 

 show the composition of the individual animal, of 

 subordinate elements, cells, tissues, organs, and systems 

 of organs. Where natural preparations are not to be 

 had, their place must be supplied by drawings and 

 models. Here also come collections illustrative of 

 anatomy and ontogeny. Then would follow the faunae 

 of a meadow, a forest, a pool, the inmates of an oyster- 

 bank, a bed of sea-weed, or a coral reef. 



The second main division is made up of the systematic 

 geographical and palseontological collections. The 

 systematic collection gives a general view of the forms 

 of the animal world in genera and families. The geo- 

 graphical collection should show the characteristic fauna 

 of each main region, as described in Wallace's " Geo- 

 graphical Distribution of Animals." The palseontological 

 division would show the fauna of each successive 

 geological formation. 



We may here pause and ask how many museums are 

 there in the world which place at the disposal even of 

 the professed naturalist, a system of collections such as 

 Haacke hopes to display to the general public ? 



Haacke rightly insists that presents which are not in 

 harmony with the purpose of the museum should be 

 declined, as they take up room, of which there is always 

 a deficiency, and involve useless work. A friend of ours, 

 in visiting a provincial museum, was once most unplea- 

 santly struck at seeing in a glass-case a pair of breeches 

 which had been worn by a foreign nobleman who at one 

 time resided in the district ! 



The four orders of museums are such as respectively 

 embrace the products of the world, of an empire, a 

 province, or a parish. 



