354 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Oct. 5, 1888. 



carried there by the wind arrive at the wrong time — 

 viz., in the autumn, when they are presently buried in 

 the next fall of snow, and are decomposed before the 

 next summer ; but the butterfly is soaring just at the 

 right season, and sometimes, aided by the wind, even 

 crosses high mountain ranges alive, but more commonly 

 alights and dies when above the snow-line or over 

 glaciers. 



In the course of our exploration we were conducted 

 to a "crevasse" about three feet wide, on one wall of 

 which some steps were cut in the ice. Descending these 

 we arrived at " Fourc's Salon," or smoking-room. 

 (Fourc was apparently the nick-name of a wag, a laugh- 

 ing philosopher, who took the lead in our excursion. 

 If I am not mistaken, his proper name was M. Desor.) 

 This salon was a cubical chamber, excavated in the ice 

 at a considerable depth below the surface, and therefore 

 was illuminated by the light which passed through its 

 ultramarine roof and walls. The effect was very beauti- 

 ful, resembling that of the blue grotto of Capri. 



Here we had opportunity of studying the structure 

 of glacier ice, which is visibly porous when closely ex- 

 amined. Water was slowly percolating downwards 

 through these pores, and crawling in them were small 

 shining creatures which, from lack of entomological 

 knowledge, I was unable to identify ; but I find that in 

 my diary they are likened to the spring-tail lepisma that 

 I had collected on the surface of pools in Battersea 

 fields, in order to mount their scales as test objects for 

 the microscope. I find now that this was not far from 

 the truth, having just met with a foot-note on page 52 

 of " Untersuchen fiber der Gletscher," in which they 

 are described as the Podura nivalis of Geer, or closely 

 allied thereto. Their active existence in the midst of 

 the ice proves that some kind of food must exist even 

 in this unpromising habitat. I am very glad to have 

 found this note by Agassiz, having seen no other notice 

 of these ice-dwellers, and expecting to find myself in 

 the position of an observer of the sea serpent, had I 

 described them only from my own recollection of this 

 single observation. 



My present object in selecting this subject for Table 

 Talk is to bring forward certain curiosities of glacial 

 phenomena which have somehow been overlooked. 

 One may read through a thick book like Geikie's " Great 

 Ice Age," without finding a word about them. It is true 

 that this is mainly devoted to geological agencies, but 

 even in books on modern glacier phenomena they are 

 scarcely noticed. Having done this, I leave the subject 

 for the present, as my readers may have had enough of it. 



Discovery of Ancient Relics at Kilmarnock. — A 

 short time ago the workmen, in preparing the ground for 

 the erection of a house in Tichfield Street, came upon 

 an ancient urn, containing arrow heads, etc. Recently 

 the president of the Glenfield Ramblers found a stone 

 gouge near the place where an old coffin was got some 

 seventy years ago. This gouge is made of serpentine 

 rock, and is of fine appearance. It is 4 inches long, 

 3 inches wide, and curved at its cutting edges. Ac- 

 cording to authorities, it is not an Ayrshire stone. The 

 thin edge has evidently been ground to a considerable 

 degree of sharpness, and was probably used in gouging 

 out the interior of an ancient canoe. It is intended that 

 these ancient relics shall find a resting-place in the 

 Burns' Monument Museum. 



THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN JAPAN. 



(Continued from page 334J 



A LITTLE table-land, below us on the left, marked the 



site of the medicinal hot springs of Shimo-no-yu, 



where a number of invalid visitors, forty or more in 



number, had been taking the waters, and now springs and 



visitors are buried under twenty feet of mud. 



To find a spot sufficiently free from mud for us to sit 

 down and open the tiffin-basket, we had to descend S 

 few hundred yards. Then we returned to the same 

 spot and climbed cautiously over the edge and down the: 

 slope, our object being to reach the top of the mud-wall 

 I have described as being on our right, and from behind 

 which the steam was rising from the crater itself. The 

 mud was in great cakes and boulders, resting upon the 

 great mass of it beneath — exactly, in fact, like a choppy 

 sea suddenly solidified. The walking, therefore, or 

 rather scrambling, was difficult, and the surface of the 

 mud treacherous. By chance, when we had descended 

 far enough in a straight line and turned off to the right 

 to climb to the wall of the crater, two of us happened to 

 be in advance of the rest. Slowly and cautiously we 

 approached the edge, testing the masses of mud before 

 us at every step. At last, side by side, and on our hands 

 and knees, we looked over. The mud-wall upon the 

 edge of which we stood, sank straight down out of sight 

 into the depths of the abyss, and actually shelved in 

 underneath us, so that we were suspended over the 

 seething crater upon no support stronger than overhang- 

 ing mud, neither solid nor tenacious. Needless to say 

 that after a single brief look we beat a gingerly but hasty 

 retreat. And none too soon, for there between us and 

 the rest of the party was a long crack several inches 

 wide. But that minute's look will never be forgotten by 

 either of us. For a thousand feet the mud precipice 

 rose straight up to our feet ; the crater from which it 

 sprang was probably a mile wide ; from a dozen half- 

 visible openings the steam was issuing with the noise of 

 a distant waterfall, while the chief orifice of the crater 

 was altogether hidden by the cloud of steam above it ; 

 and, whenever the vapour was dissipated for a moment, 

 we could see the liquid mud at the bottom, apparently 

 still seething in great disturbance and commotion. The 

 colossal scale of it all, the more than Alpine precipice, 

 the ocean of mud, the buried village, the heat, the steam, 

 the noise, the attempt to picture in imagination the scene 

 when the earth had been thus burst and riven and scat- 

 tered and convulsed, and the solid land had melted and 

 flowed out as the sea — all these combined to produce an 

 impression of awe and stupefaction which nothing sub- 

 sequent can ever efface, and with which no previous 

 experiences of life afford the slightest comparison. 



We were the first foreigners to make thus a rough but 

 fairly complete examination of the scene of the eruption, 

 and when we started for our long walk home later in 

 the afternoon, we were in a position to say with some 

 confidence just what had happened. These conclusions, 

 we may say here, were confirmed and corrected by the 

 narratives of the survivors, whom we interviewed the 

 next day amongst the ruins of the villages at the foot of 

 the mountain on the side opposite to that we had as- 

 cended. The main facts of the eruption are these : At 

 the point of the manifestation of volcanic activity, the 

 mountain range consists of three peaks, which are oiten 

 spoken of together as Bandai-san, but consists properly 

 of Bandai-san, 5.S00 feet, a somewhat smaller mountain 



