Recordu of ihe Ueoluyical Survey of India. [voj,. xi. 
It is merely a line-grained, slightly calcareous, white sandstone, which I have 
obser'ved more than once in situ near the volcanoes. 
Mr. Howe alludes to “ mas.ses and particles of lava” thrown up from one of 
No products of fusion ejected. Kyank Phyu volcanoes during the above men¬ 
tioned eruption. Lieutenant Foley, also, says that at 
one of the craters in the same neighhourhood “ scoriaceous matter, trap minerals, 
and basalt show evidence of more active volcanic agency in times past.^” This 
statement is, however, completely erroneous. I have visited every one of the 
Kyauk Phyu volcanoes, and (knowing beforehand what had been' written) failed 
to find a single particle of basalt, lava, scoriae, or any other rock showing even 
a trace of fusion. The ‘hard and sonorous rock resembling clinkstone, of 
a sea-green color and intersected with veins of calcspar,’ found by Lieutenant 
Foley at the foot of one of the Ramri volcanoes, and conjectured by him to 
have been ejected in a state of fusion, was most jmobably a hard, fine-gi-ained, 
greenish sandstone with calcspar veins through it. A rock of this kind may be 
seen, amongst other localities, on Flat Island. In another place, indeed. Lieute¬ 
nant I oley says that “ a few blocks of sandstone, and a conglomerate, consisting 
of a paste of sand.stone, with enclosed nodules of a calcareous earth, lay upon 
the beach; some of these rocks had a scoriaceous appearance, were enermsted with 
crystals of iron pyrites, and bore evident marks of igneous origin.”® 
The inflammable gas which is evolved from the volcanoes, in bubbles during 
Gaseous emissions. ordinary times, and in enormous quantities during 
the most violent eruptions, is evidently, in the main, 
marsh-gas, mixed probably with a varjnng proportion of other gases. During 
great eruptions it is not improbably mixed with the vapor of the more highly 
volatile of the petroleum hydrocarbons, as well as, perhaps, with the heavier 
hydrocarbons blown out in a state of spray. That a certain amount of heat 
is connected with such eruptions is evidenced by the hot or warm condition 
of the mud,3 but the unaltered state of the ejecta, especially such substances 
as lignite and pyrites which would undergo decomposition if strongly heated, 
show that the temperature is not very high. It is, I think, imi)robable that 
the gas issues during eruptions at a sufficiently high temperature to ignite 
spontaneously. The cause of its ignition may, perhajJS, be inferred from the 
phenomenon frequently observed during eruptions of fragmentiiry ejecta from 
volcanoes in the usual sense of the term, like Vesuvius. During such times 
“ forked lightnings of great vividness and beauty” are continually darted from the 
ascending column of stones, scorise, dust and more or less condensed vapor, the 
electricity being developed by the friction of the ejecta amongst themselves.* 
The j)rinciple of the hydro-electric machine is very similar, in which large quan¬ 
tities of electricity of high intensity are produced by the issue of partially con¬ 
densed steam through small orifices of such form as to create considerable friction. 
From a large machine of this kind a battery has been charged in half a minute 
which gave sparks 22 inches long.5 In the case of the mud volcanoes, when 
‘ Journ. As. Soc., Bengal, II, 597. = Joiirn. As. Soc., Bengiil, IV, 23. 
^ P' 19®- ‘ Scrope’s volcanoes, pj). 22, 57. 
Watts’ Dictionary of Chemistry, II, 408. 
