SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
433 
of the present year we had the grandest display from the crater that I have 
over seen. The action within it was vehement, and the scene marvellously 
brilliant. The great mural pit was in awful ebullition, and so violent was 
the raging of the molten sea within, that herdsmen of Reed and Richardson’s 
ranch, on the eastern slope, reported the mountain as constantly quivering 
like a boiling pot. At Kapapala in Kau, at the base of the mountain, both 
foreigners and natives assert that they distinctly heard the swash of the 
fiery liquid, like the roaring and surging of a rushing river. The sheen of 
light, which rose thousands of feet heavenward and spread like a burning 
firmament over the mountain, was truly magnificent. At times the splen- 
dour was so vivid and so extended that observers called out the whole 
neighbourhood to witness the scene ; some thought they saw the fiery river 
rushing down the side of the mountain ; and numbers were sure that it 
was half way down the side, and that it was coming towards Hilo in hot 
haste. This, however, proved an optical delusion. The molten sea was 
confined within the deep crater, but it was fearfully grand. Parties were 
planning a visit to the scene of action, when suddenly the great furnace 
ceased blast. This was a little tantalising, but as we had all been favoured 
with free tickets to a royal display of fireworks, we could not mourn.” 
A Salt Deposit of Western Ontario. — Mr. J. Gibson, B.A., gives an 
account of this. The following is the depth of one of the wells : — 
Feet. 
1. Gravel, sand, and clay 25 
2. Stratified dark-gray limestone 400 
3. Stratified magnesian limestone, followed by a very hard layer 
of chert 200 
4. Crystalline siliceous limestone, containing magnesia . . .110 
5. Blue clay, shale, and limestone 250 
6. Gypsum, shale, and salt 50 
7. Rock salt 100 
Total depth . . 1135 
The drilling done in this well was unprecedented in the annals of this system 
of mining, both for speed and absence of mishaps. Actual boring com- 
menced on the 10th of March, 1870, and the salt-bearing stratum was 
reached on the eve of the 22nd of the same month. After passing through 
100 feet of pure rock salt, without the least evidence of change, the boring 
was abandoned. The great success attending this boring led to the sinking 
of two other wells, viz. : — Sparling and Merchant’s, in the immediate 
vicinity ; both, however, giving records similar to the above. Truly in no 
other portion of the American continent has there been discovered a deposit 
of salt so magnificently great. The supply is practically illimitable, and 
may favourably compare with the production of the salt-mines of Droitwich, 
in Central England, or with that of the solid salt-hills of Cordova. 
Rock Fissures and their Causes . — In a paper in the Geological Magazine,” 
Mr. T. Clifton Ward, F.G.S., after giving a long account of the subject, 
says, “How are such fissures to be accounted for? Does any one of 
the following suppositions seem likely ? — 1. That they are strictly of the 
nature of slips j that is, the mass of the mountain, or any part of its mass, 
TOL. XII. — NO. XLIX. F F 
