254 Russell — Massive-Solid Volcanic Eruptions. 



bear evidence of being the result of massive-solid eruptions 

 like that Pele is now experiencing. " This is especially clear," 

 writes Hovey, " in the case of the Grand Soufriere, the 

 cone of which rises above an old crater-rim which it has 

 buried in the same way that Monte Pele is now striving to 

 bury its surrounding crater-walls." The details on which this 

 conclusion is based have not yet appeared in print, but will no 

 doubt when published furnish a valuable contribution to the 

 history of volcanoes. 



Sir Richard Strachey, in a note in Nature,* presents a sketch, 

 but unfortunately not accompanied by a description, of certain 

 prominent columns in the Deccan trap region of India, which 

 have at least a superficial resemblance to the obelisk of Pele. 

 The columns represented in the sketch, however, appear to be 

 examples of the nearly complete removal by erosion of rem- 

 nants of a formerly extensive lava sheet resting on less resistant 

 beds which locally have been left in relief and now appear as 

 buttes or hills owing to the shelter afforded by the hard bed 

 above them. Similar buttes with prominent columns on their 

 summits are well known in the western portion of the United 

 States, and have long been recognized as monuments spared 

 by erosion. This tentative explanation, while based principally 

 on the sketch published by Strachey, and familiarity with sim- 

 ilar topographic forms in the region drained by the Columbia 

 River, and occupied by the Columbia River lava — the counter- 

 part in jnany ways of the Deccan trap of India — is sustained 

 by other considerations, as will appear later in this article. 



Professor John C. Brannerf has recently invited renewed 

 attention to Fernando de Noronha, an island in the South 

 Atlantic about 230 miles from the northeast coast of Brazil, 

 the summit of which is formed by a conspicuous, irregular 

 tower-like mass of igneous rock, 500 feet high, the inaccessible 

 summit of which rises 1000 feet above the sea. In the article 

 referred to mention is made of the fact that Charles Darwin, 

 in giving an account of his observations while connected with 

 the voyage of the Beagle in 1832 to 1836, remarks in refer- 

 ence to the Peak of Fernando de Noronha : " One is inclined 

 to believe that it has been suddenly pushed up in a semi-fluid 

 state." Sketches of the remarkable culminating spire of the 

 island are also presented and its resemblance in form and simi- 

 larity of position in reference to the elevation on which it 

 stands, to the obelisk of Pele, pointed out. 



Branner states frankly, however, that the resemblance of the 

 Peak to the obelisk of Pele " may be quite accidental," and in 

 the earlier article mentioned in the preceding footnote presents 



*Vol. lxviii, Oct. 15, 1903, pp. 573-574. 



fThis Journal, December, 1903, Series IV, vol. xvi, pp. 442-444. A 

 detailed account of the geology of Fernando de Noronha, also by Branner, 

 was published in the same Journal, Series III, vol. xxxvii, 1889, pp. 145-161. 



