Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 124, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 May 1912 — CRATERS ARE QUIET [ARTICLE]

CRATERS ARE QUIET

Violent Eruptions in Islands of Samoa at End. Scientists Say Centuries Are Likely to Pass Before There Will Be Another Flow of Lava From Volcano. San Francisco. —The volcanic outbursts that for over six years have terrorized the Island of Savaii, in the Samoan group, have ceased at last. These eruptions have been almost Incessant, and there Is no record of any other volcanic center that has been so violently active for so long a tints. All the terrific energy of the Matavanu volcano seems now to have been expended. Dr. K. Sapper, Dr. W. Grevel and other students of volcanic phenomena express the opnion that there probablyv will be no other eruption of Matavanu for another century and perhaps never. „ The ground for their belief that the volcanic energy has been entirely exhausted is that since the first month of 1911 there has been a gradual and uninterrupted decline of energy, until every trace of it finally disappeared in October last In August last the lake of molten lava was covered with a hard crust, but cracks In Its surface still revealed the rosy light of the superheated' matter below, and through one or another volcanic vent a little smoke was still rising. Three months later a cold surface covered everything. There was hot a trace of smoke, not a sulphurous odor, no sign of fluid lava, nothing except a little steam here and there. So this is the end, perhaps for generations, of the remarkable phenomena that specialists have traveled from Europe to study. The trouble has been that they have found little vantage ground from which to pursue their work. The ebullitions have been so

continuous that it has been Impossible to witness the phenomena and their results except at long range. There was no volcano where these eruptions, beginning in August 1905, were centered. All the many volcanoes in the island had been quiescent for over a century. Suddenly volcanic vents were opened on the floor of a deep valley about eight* miles from the northeast coast of Savaii. The whole valley was sodn filled with lava. The ejecta built up a ridge of lava, about 1,000 feet thick, where the valley had been; and above the ridge arose a mountain of outpourings 2,000 feet high, to which the name of Matavanu was given. Over 30 square miles of the island were finally covered to various depths with the fluid lava, destroying many native houses with their areas of cultivation. It has been estimated that at times the outpouring of lava from the center of eruption amounted to from 2,000 to 3,000 tons a minute. The coral reef, about five miles from the shore, is the outer boundary of the lagoon between the coast and the reef. The lagoon has been entirely filled with lava for a distance of about five miles along the coast and a long lava ridge was built up In the sea beyond the coral reef. The neighboring salt waters became a superheated caldron, killing millions of corals and flshj and many fish, thus cooked, were collected and eaten by the natives.