Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 277, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1920 — DOUBT NEW VOLCANO [ARTICLE]

DOUBT NEW VOLCANO

Recent Earthquakes Did Not Form Another Belcher. Scientists Believe Escaping Gas Was Mistaken by Observers for New Crater. » Rome—Scientists say they do not believe that a new volcano was created on Mount near Spezia, during tlib earthquakes which began Sept. 7 and continued until Sept. 9, causing the loss of 500 Ilves. Tongues of flame and smoke or dust were seen to be emitted from what Is popularly supposed to have been a pew crater opened near the mountain top. Frank A. Perrett, the American volcanologist for the Carnegie institution, who occupies a station at Mount Vesuvius to observe its operations, has expressed to the Associated Press the oninion that no new volcano has been

formed, but that the earthquakes caused displacements of subterranean strata, causing a fissure In the earth's crust, and that gas escaping therefrom was mistaken by onlookers as the opening of a new crater. The phenomenon was not a new one. Mr. Perrett said the seismical instruments showed a towering of the earth level In the earthquake district previous to the tremors. This has been- observed on other occasions when earthquakes occurred. This view is shared by Senator Caplellint, a leading geologist, who has been interviewed bythe MessageTo and who says therf may have been an eruption Of gas through a Assure on Mount Plsanlno, and the supposed column of smoke above the mountain may have been caused by clouds of dust from falling earth. The tongues of flame. In Senator Caplellini’s opinion, may possibly have been Inflammable gas from under-

ground wells of oil. He said, however, that volcanoes can appear independently of the structure of the earth’s crust, and that the greatest catastrophes have occurred from the appearance of volcanoes' where nobody expected them. For example, the geologist continued, Mount Etna rises out of post-pilocene strata, while the volcanoes of the Andes mountains In South America arise from granite rocks. Therefore, the nature of the Apuan mountains did not exclude the possibility of a volcano appearing on Mount Pisanlno.