Outlines of the Earth's History Part 12

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 15.--Flow of lava invading a forest. A tree in the distance is not completely burned, showing that the molten rock had lost much of its original heat.]

The effect of deep burial is to increase the heat of strata. This result is accomplished in two different ways. The direct effect arising from the imposition of weight, that derived from the ma.s.s of stratified material, is, as we know, to bring about a down-sinking of the earth's crust. In the measure of this falling, heat is engendered precisely as it is by the falling of a trip-hammer on the anvil, with which action, as is well known, we may heat an iron bar to a high temperature. It is true that this down-sinking of the surface under weight is in part due to the compression of the rocks, and in part to the slipping away of the soft underpinning of more or less fluid rock.

Yet further it is in some measure brought about by the wrinkling of the crust. But all these actions result in the conversion of energy of position into heat, and so far serve to raise the temperature of the rocks which are concerned in the movements. By far the largest source of heat, however, is that which comes forth from the earth's interior, and which was stored there in the olden day when the matter forming the earth gathered into the ma.s.s of our sphere. This, which we may term the original heat, is constantly flowing forth into s.p.a.ce, but makes its way slowly, because of the non-conductive, or, as we may phrase it, the "blanketing" effect of the outer rock. The effect of the strata is the same as that exercised by the non-conductive coatings which are put on steam boilers. A more familiar comparison may be had from the blankets used for bedclothing. If on top of the first blanket we put a second, we keep warmer because the temperature of the lower one is elevated by the heat from our body which is held in. In the crust of the earth each layer of rock resists the outflow of heat, and each addition lifts the temperature of all the layers below.

When water-bearing strata have been buried to the depth of ten miles, the temperature of the ma.s.s may be expected to rise to somewhere between seven hundred and a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. If the depth attained should be fifty miles, it is likely that the temperature will be five times as great. At such a heat the water which the rocks contain tends in a very vigorous way to expand and pa.s.s into the state of vapour. This it can not readily do, because of its close imprisonment; we may say, however, that the tendency toward explosion is almost as great as that of ignited gunpowder. Such powder, if held in small s.p.a.ces in a ma.s.s of cast steel, could be fired without rending the metal. The gases would be retained in a highly compressed, possibly in a fluid form. If now it happens that any of the strain in the rocks such as lead to the production of faults produce fissures leading from the surface into this zone of heated water, the tendency of the rocks containing the fluid, impelled by its expansion, will be to move with great energy toward the point of relief or lessened pressure which the crevice affords. Where rocks are in any way softened, pressure alone will force them into a cavity, as is shown by the fact that beds of tolerably hard clay stones in deep coal mines may be forced into the s.p.a.ces by the pressure of the rocks which overlie them--in fact, the expense of cutting out these in-creeping rocks is in some British mines a serious item in the cost of the product.

The expansion of the water contained in the deep-lying heated rocks probably is by far the most efficient agent in urging them toward the plane of escape which the fissure affords. When the motion begins it pervades all parts of the rock at once, so that an actual flow is induced. So far as the movement is due to the superinc.u.mbent weight, the tendency is at once to increase the temperature of the moving ma.s.s. The result is that it may be urged into the fissure perhaps even hotter than when it started from the original bed place. In proportion as the rocky matter wins its way toward the surface, the pressure upon it diminishes, and the contained vapours are freer to expand. Taking on the vaporous form, the bubbles gather to each other, and when they appear at the throat of the volcano they may, if the explosions be infrequent, a.s.sume the character above noted in the little eruption of Vesuvius. Where, however, the lava ascends rapidly through the channel, it often attains the open air with so much vapour in it, and this intimately mingled with the ma.s.s, that the explosion rends the materials into an impalpably fine powder, which may float in the air for months before it falls to the earth. With a less violent movement the vapour bubbles expand in the lava, but do not rend it apart, thus forming the porous, spongy rock known as pumice. With a yet slower ascent a large part of the steam may go away, so that we may have a flow of lava welling forth from the vent, still giving forth steam, but with a vapour whose tension is so lowered that the matter is not blown apart, though it may boil violently for a time after it escapes into the air.

Although the foregoing relatively simple explanation of volcanic action can not be said as yet to be generally accepted by geologists, the reasons are sufficient which lead us to believe that it accounts for the main features which we observe in this cla.s.s of explosions--in other words, it is a good working hypothesis. We shall now proceed in the manner which should be followed in all natural inquiry to see if the facts shown in the distribution of volcanoes in s.p.a.ce and time confirm or deny the view.

The most noteworthy feature in the distribution of volcanoes is that, at the present time at least, all active vents are limited to the sea floors or to the sh.o.r.e lands within the narrow range of three hundred miles from the coast. Wherever we find a coast line dest.i.tute of volcanoes, as is the case with the eastern coast of North and South America, it appears that the sh.o.r.e has recently been carried into the land for a considerable distance--in other words, old coast lines are normally volcanic; that is, here and there have vents of this nature.

Thus the North Atlantic, the coasts of which appear to have gone inland for a great distance in geologically recent times, is non-volcanic; while the Pacific coast, which for a long time has remained in its present position, has a singularly continuous line of craters near the sh.o.r.e extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. So uninterrupted is this line of volcanoes that if they were all in eruption it would very likely be possible to journey down the coast without ever being out of sight of the columns of vapour which they would send forth. On the floor of the sea volcanic peaks appear to be very widely distributed; only a few of them--those which attain the surface of the water--are really known, but soundings show long lines of elevations which doubtless represent cones distributed along fault lines, none of the peaks of sufficient height to break the surface of the sea. It is likely, indeed, that for one marine volcano which appears as an island there are scores which do not attain the surface.

Volcanic islands exist and generally abound in the ocean and greater seas; every now and then we observe a new one forming as a small island, which is apt to be washed away by the sea shortly after the eruption ceases, the disappearance being speedy, for the reason that the volcanic ashes of which these cones are composed drift away like snow before the movement of the waves.

If the waters of the ocean and seas were drained away so that we could inspect the portion of the earth's surface which they cover as readily as we do the dry lands, the most conspicuous feature would be the innumerable volcanic eminences which lie hidden in these watery realms. Wherever the observer pa.s.sed from the centres of the present lands he would note within the limits of those fields only mountains, much modified by river action; hills which the rivers had left in scarfing away the strata; and dales which had been carved out by the flowing waters. Near the sh.o.r.e lines of the vanished seas he would begin to find mountains, hills, and vales occasionally commingled with volcanic peaks, those structures built from the materials ejected from the vents. Pa.s.sing the coast line to the seaward, the hills and dales would quickly disappear, and before long the mountains would vanish from his way, and he would gradually enter on a region of vast rolling plains beset by volcanic peaks, generally acc.u.mulated in long ranges, somewhat after the manner of mountains, but differing from those elevations not only in origin but in aspect, the volcanic set of peaks being altogether made up of conical, cup-topped elevations.

A little consideration will show us that the fact of volcanoes being in the limit to the sea floors and to a narrow fringe of sh.o.r.e next certain ocean borders is reconcilable with the view as to their formation which we have adopted. We have already noted the fact that the continents are old, which implies that the parts of the earth which they occupy have long been the seats of tolerably continuous erosion. Now and then they have swung down partly beneath the sea, and during their submersion they received a share of sediments. But, on the whole, all parts of the lands except strips next the coast may be reckoned as having been subjected to an excess of wearing action far exceeding the depositional work. Therefore, as we readily see, underneath such land areas there has been no blanketing process going on which has served to increase the heat in the deep underlying rocks.

On the contrary, it would be easy to show, and the reader may see it himself, that the progressive cooling of the earth has probably brought about a lowering of the temperature in all the section from the surface to very great depths, so that not only is the rock water unaffected by increase of heat, but may be actually losing temperature. In other words, the conditions which we a.s.sume bring about volcanic action do not exist beneath the old land.

Beneath the seas, except in their very greatest depths, and perhaps even there, the process of forming strata is continually going on.

Next the sh.o.r.es, sometimes for a hundred or two miles away to seaward, the princ.i.p.al contribution may be the sediment worn from the lands by the waves and the rivers. Farther away it is to a large extent made up of the remains of animals and plants, which when dying give their skeletons to form the strata. Much of the materials laid down--perhaps in all more than half--consist of volcanic dust, ashes, and pumice, which drifts very long times before it finds its way to the bottom. We have as yet no data of a precise kind for determining the average rate of acc.u.mulation of sediments upon the sea floor, but from what is known of the wearing of the lands, and the amount of volcanic waste which finds its way to the seas, it is probably not less than about a foot in ten thousand years; it is most likely, indeed, much to exceed this amount. From data afforded by the eruptions in Java and in other fields where the quant.i.ty of volcanic dust contributed to the seas can be estimated, the writer is disposed to believe that the average rate of sedimentation on the sea floors is twice as great as the estimate above given.

Acc.u.mulating at the average rate of one foot in ten thousand years, it would require a million years to produce a hundred feet of sediments; a hundred million to form ten thousand feet, and five hundred million to create the thickness of about ten miles of bed. At the rate of two feet in ten thousand years, the thickness acc.u.mulated would be about twenty miles. When we come to consider the duration of the earth's geologic history, we shall find reasons for believing that the formation of sediment may have continued for as much as five hundred million years.

The foregoing inquiries concerning the origin of volcanoes show that at the present time they are clearly connected with some process which goes on beneath the sea. An extension of the inquiry indicates that this relation has existed in earlier geological times; for, although the living volcanoes are limited to places within three hundred miles of the sea, we find lava flows, ashes, and other volcanic acc.u.mulations far in the interior of the continents, though the energy which brought them forth to the earth's surface has ceased to operate in those parts of the land. In these cases of continental volcanoes it generally, if not always, appears that the cessation of the activity attended the removal of the sh.o.r.e line of the ocean or the disappearance of great inland seas. Thus the volcanoes of the Yellowstone district may have owed their activity to the immense deposits of sediment which were formed in the vast fresh-water lakes which during the later Cretaceous and early Tertiary times stretched along the eastern face of the Rocky Mountains, forming a Mediterranean Sea in North America comparable to that which borders southern Europe.

It thus appears that the arrangement of volcanoes with reference to sea basins has held for a considerable period in the past. Still further, when we look backward through the successive formations of the earth's crust we find here and there evidences in old lava flows, in volcanic ashes, and sometimes in the ruins of ancient cones which have been buried in the strata, that igneous activity such as is now displayed in our volcanoes has been, since the earliest days of which we have any record, a characteristic feature of the earth. There is no reason to suppose that this action has in the past been any greater or any less than in modern days. All these facts point to the conclusion that volcanic action is due to the escape of rock water which has been heated to high temperatures, and which drives along with it as it journeys toward a crevice the rock in which it has been confined.

We will now notice some other explanations of volcanic action which have obtained a certain credence. First, we may note the view that these ejections from craters are forced out from a supposed liquid interior of the earth. One of the difficulties of this view is that we do not know that the earth's central parts are fluid--in fact, many considerations indicate that such is not the case. Next, we observe that we not infrequently find two craters, each containing fluid lava, with the fluid standing at differences of height of several thousand feet, although the cones are situated very near each other. If these lavas came from a common internal reservoir, the principles which control the action of fluids would cause the lavas to be at the same elevation. Moreover, this view does not provide any explanation of the fact that volcanoes are in some way connected with actions which go on on the floors of great water basins. There is every reason to believe that the fractures in the rocks under the land are as numerous and deep-going as those beneath the sea. If it were a mere question of access to a fluid interior, volcanoes should be equally distributed on land and sea floors. Last of all, this explanation in no wise accounts for the intermixture of water with the fluid rock. We can not well believe that water could have formed a part of the deeper earth in the old days of original igneous fusion. In that time the water must have been all above the earth in the vaporous state.

Another supposition somewhat akin to that mentioned is that the water of the seas finds its way down through crevices beneath the floors of the ocean, and, there coming in contact with an internal molten ma.s.s, is converted into steam, which, along with the fluid rock, escapes from the volcanic vent. In addition to the objections urged to the preceding view, we may say concerning this that the lava, if it came forth under these circ.u.mstances, would emerge by the short way, that by which the water went down, and not by the longer road, by which it may be discharged ten thousand feet or more above the level of the sea.

The foregoing general account of volcanic action should properly be followed by some account of what takes place in characteristic eruptions. This history of these matters is so ample that it would require the s.p.a.ce of a great encyclopaedia to contain them. We shall therefore be able to make only certain selections which may serve to ill.u.s.trate the more important facts.

By far the best-known volcanic cone is that of Vesuvius, which has been subjected to tolerably complete record for about twenty-four hundred years. About 500 B.C. the Greeks, who were ever on the search for places where they might advantageously plant colonies, settled on the island of Ischia, which forms the western of what is now termed the Bay of Naples. This island was well placed for tillage as well as for commerce, but the enterprising colonists were again and again disturbed by violent outbreaks of one or more volcanoes which lie in the interior of this island; at one time it appears that the people were driven away by these explosions.

In these pre-Christian days Vesuvius, then known as Monte Somma, was not known to be a volcano, it never having shown any trace of eruption. It appeared as a regularly shaped mountain, somewhat over two thousand feet high, with a central depression about three miles in diameter at the top, and perhaps two miles over at the bottom, which was plainlike in form, with some lakes of bitter water in the centre.

The most we know of this central cavity is connected with the insurrection of the slaves led by Spartacus, the army of the revolters having camped for a time on the plain encircled by the crater walls.

The outer slopes of the mountain afforded then a remarkably fertile soil; some traces, indeed, of the fertility have withstood the modern eruptions which have desolated its flanks. This wonderful Bay of Naples became the seat of the fairest Roman culture, as well as of a very extended commerce. Toward the close of the first century of our era the region was perhaps richer, more beautifully cultivated, and the seat of a more elaborate luxury than any part of the sh.o.r.e line of Europe at the present day. At the foot of the mountain, on the eastern border of the bay, the city of Pompeii, with a population of about fifty thousand souls, was a considerable port, with an extensive commerce, particularly with Egypt. The charming town was also a place of great resort for rich Egyptians who cared to dwell in Europe. On the flanks of the mountain there was at least one large town, Herculaneum, which appears to have been an a.s.sociation of rich men's residences. On the eastern side of the bay, at a point now known as Baiae, the Roman Government had a naval station, which in the year 79 was under the command of the celebrated Pliny, a most voluminous though unscientific writer on matters of natural history. With him in that year there was his nephew, commonly known as the younger Pliny, then a student of eighteen years, but afterward himself an author.

These facts are stated in some detail, for they are all involved in the great tragedy which we are now to describe.

For many years there had been no eruption about the Bay of Naples. The volcanoes on Ischia had been still for a century or more, and the various circular openings on the mainland had been so far quiet that they were not recognised as volcanoes. Even the inquisitive Pliny, with his great learning, was so little of a geologist that he did not know the signs which indicate the seat of volcanic action, though they are among the most conspicuous features which can meet the eye. The Greeks would doubtless have recognised the meaning of these physical signs. In the year 63 the sh.o.r.es of the Bay of Naples were subjected to a distinctive earthquake. Others less severe followed in subsequent years. In an early morning in the year 79, a servant aroused the elder Pliny at Baiae with the news that there was a wonderful cloud rising from Monte Somma. The younger Pliny states that in form it was like a pine tree, the common species in Italy having a long trunk with a crown of foliage on its summit, shaped like an umbrella. This crown of the column grew until it spread over the whole landscape, darkening the field of view. Shortly after, a despatch boat brought a message to the admiral, who at once set forth for the seat of the disturbance. He invited his nephew to accompany him, but the prudent young man relates in his letters to Tacitus, from whom we know the little concerning the eruption which has come down to us, that he preferred to do some reading which he had to attend to. His uncle, however, went straight forward, intending to land at some point on the sh.o.r.e at the foot of the cone. He found the sea, however, so high that a landing was impossible; moreover, the fall of rock fragments menaced the ship. He therefore cruised along the sh.o.r.e for some distance, landing at a station probably near the present village of Castellamare. At this point the fall of ashes and pumice was very great, but the st.u.r.dy old Roman had his dinner and slept after it. There is testimony that he snored loudly, and was aroused only when his servants began to fear that the fall of ashes and stones would block the way out of his bedchamber. When he came forth with his attendants, their heads protected by planks resting on pillows, he set out toward Pompeii, which was probably the place where he sought to land. After going some distance, the brave man fell dead, probably from heart disease; it is said that he was at the time exceedingly asthmatic. No sooner were his servants satisfied that the life had pa.s.sed from his body than they fled. The remains were recovered after the eruption had ceased. The younger Pliny further relates that after his uncle left, the cloud from the mountain became so dense that in midday the darkness was that of midnight, and the earthquake shocks were so violent that wagons brought to the courtyard of the dwelling to bear the members of the household away were rolled this way and that by the quakings of the earth.

Save for the above-mentioned few and unimportant details concerning the eruption, we have no other contemporaneous account. We have, indeed, no more extended story until Dion Ca.s.sius, writing long after the event, tells us that Herculaneum and Pompeii were overwhelmed; but he mixes his story with fantastic legends concerning the appearance of G.o.ds and demons, as is his fashion in his so-called history. Of all the Roman writers, he is perhaps the most untrustworthy. Fortunately, however, we have in the deposits of ashes which were thrown out at the time of this great eruption some basis for interpreting the events which took place. It is evident that for many hours the Vesuvian crater, which had been dormant for at least five hundred years, blew out with exceeding fury. It poured forth no lava streams; the energy of the uprushing vapours was too great for that. The molten rock in their path was blown into fine bits, and all the hard material cast forth as free dust. In the course of the eruption, which probably did not endure more than two days, possibly not more than twenty-four hours, ash enough was poured forth to form a thick layer which spread far over the neighbouring area of land and sea floor. It covered the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii to a depth of more than twenty feet, and over a circle having a diameter of twenty miles the average thickness may have been something like this amount. So deep was it that, although almost all the people of these towns survived, it did not seem to them worth while to undertake to excavate their dwelling places. At Pompeii the covering did not overtop the higher of the low houses. An amount of labour which may be estimated at not over one thirtieth of the value, or at least the cost which had been incurred in building the city, would have restored it to a perfectly inhabitable state. The fact that it was utterly abandoned probably indicates a certain superst.i.tious view in connection with the eruption.

The fact that the people had time to flee from Herculaneum and Pompeii, bearing with them their more valuable effects, is proved by the excavations at these places which have been made in modern times.

The larger part of Pompeii and a considerable portion of Herculaneum have been thus explored; only rarely have human remains been found.

Here and there, particularly in the cellars, the labourers engaged in the work of disinterring the cities note that their picks enter a cavity; examining the s.p.a.ce, they find they have discovered the remains of a human skeleton. It has recently been learned that by pouring soft plaster of Paris into these openings a mould may be obtained which gives in a surprisingly perfect manner the original form of the body. The explanation of this mould is as follows: Along with the fall of cinders in an eruption there is always a great descent of rain, arising from the condensation of the steam which pours forth from the volcano. This water, mingling with the ashes, forms a pasty mud, which often flows in vast streams, and is sometimes known as mud lava. This material has the qualities of cement--that is, it shortly "sets" in a manner comparable to plaster of Paris or ordinary mortar. During the eruption of 79 this mud penetrated all the low places in Pompeii, covering the bodies of the people, who were suffocated by the fumes of the volcanic emanations.

We know that these people were not drowned by the inundation; their att.i.tudes show that they were dead before the flowing matter penetrated to where they lay.

It happened that Pompeii lay beyond the influence of the subsequent great eruptions of Vesuvius, so that it afterward received only slight ash showers. Herculaneum, on the other hand, has century by century been more and more deeply buried until at the present time it is covered by many sheets of lava. This is particularly to be regretted, for the reason that, while Pompeii was a seaport town of no great wealth or culture, Herculaneum was the residence place of the gentry, people who possessed libraries, the records of which can be in many cases deciphered, and from which we might hope to obtain some of the lost treasures of antiquity. The papyrus rolls on which the books of that day were written, though charred by heat and time, are still interpretable.

After the great explosion of 79, Vesuvius sank again into repose. It was not until 1056 that vigorous eruptions again began. From time to time slight explosions occurred, none of which yielded lava flows; it was not until the date last mentioned that this accompaniment of the eruption began to appear. In 1636, after a repose of nearly a century and a half, there came a very great outbreak, which desolated a wide extent of country on the northwestern side of the cone. At this stage in the history of the crater the volcanic flow began to attain the sea. Washing over the edge of the old original crater of Monte Somma, and thus lowering its elevation, these streams devastated, during the eruption just mentioned and in various other outbreaks, a wide field of cultivated land, overwhelming many villages. The last considerable eruption which yielded large quant.i.ties of lava was that of 1872, which sent its tide for a distance of about six miles.

Since 1636 the eruptions of Vesuvius have steadily increased in frequency, and, on the whole, diminished in violence. In the early years of its history the great outbreaks were usually separated by intervals of a century or more, and were of such energy that the lava was mostly blown to dust, forming clouds so vast that on two occasions at least they caused a midnight darkness at Constantinople, nearly twelve hundred miles away. This is as if a volcano at Chicago should completely hide the sun in the city of Boston. In the present state of Vesuvius, the cone may be said to be in slight, almost continuous eruption. The old central valley which existed before the eruption of 79, and continued to be distinct for long after that time, has been filled up by a smaller cone, bearing a relatively tiny crater of vent, the original wall being visible only on the eastern and northern parts of its circuit, and here only with much diminished height. On the western face the slope from the base of the mountain to the summit of the new cone is almost continuous, though the trained eye can trace the outline of Monte Somma--its position in a kind of bench, which is traceable on that side of the long slope leading from the summit of the new cone to the sea. The fact that the lavas of Vesuvius have broken out on the southwestern side, while the old wall of the cone has remained unbroken on the eastern versant, has a curious explanation. The prevailing wind of Naples is from the southwest, being the strong counter trades which belong in that lat.i.tude. In the old days when the Monte Somma cone was constructed these winds caused the larger part of the ashes to fall on the leeward side of the cone, thus forming a thicker and higher wall around that part of the crater.

From the nature of the recent eruptions of Vesuvius it appears likely that the mountain is about to enter on a second period of inaction.

The pipes leading through the new cone are small, and the ma.s.s of this elevation const.i.tutes a great plug, closing the old crater mouth. To give vent to a large discharge of steam, the whole of this great ma.s.s, having a depth of nearly two thousand feet, would have to be blown away. It seems most likely that when the occasion for such a discharge comes, the vapours of the eruption will seek a vent through some other of the many volcanic openings which lie to the westward of this great cone. The history of these lesser volcanoes points to the conclusion that when the path by way of Vesuvius is obstructed they may give relief to the steam which is forcing its course to the surface. Two or three times since the eruption of Pliny, during periods when Vesuvius had long been quiet, outbreaks have taken place on Ischia or in the Phlaegraen Fields, a region dotted with small craters which lies to the west of Naples. The last of these occurred in 1552, and led to the formation of the beautiful little cone known as Monte Nuovo. This eruption took place near the town of Puzzuoli, a place which was then the seat of a university, the people of which have left us records of the accident.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 16.--Diagrammatic sections through Mount Vesuvius, showing changes in the form of the cone. (From Phillips.)]

The outbreak which formed Monte Nuovo was slight but very characteristic. It occurred in and beside a circular pool known as the Lucrine Lake, itself an ancient crater. At the beginning of the disturbance the ground opened in ragged cavities, from which mud and ashes and great fragments of hard rock were hurled high in the air, some of the stones ascending to a height of several thousand feet.

With slight intermissions this outbreak continued for some days, resulting in the formation of a hill about five hundred feet high, with a crater in its top, the bottom of which lay near the level of the sea. Although this volcanic elevation, being made altogether of loose fragments, is rapidly wearing down, while the crater is filling up, it remains a beautiful object in the landscape, and is also noteworthy for the fact that it is the only structure of this nature which we know from its beginning. In the Phlaegraen Field there are a number of other craters of small size, with very low cones about them.

These appear to have been the product of brief, slight eruptions. That known as the Solfatara, though not in eruption during the historic period, is interesting for the fact that from the crevices of the rocks about it there comes forth a continued efflux of carbonic-acid gas. This substance probably arises from the effect of heat contained in old lavas which are in contact with limestone in the deep under-earth. We know such limestones are covered by the lavas of Vesuvius, for the reason that numerous blocks of the rock are thrown out during eruptions, and are often found embedded in the lava streams. It is an interesting fact that these craters of the Phlaegraen Field, lying between the seats of vigorous eruption on Ischia and at Vesuvius, have never been in vigorous eruption. Their slight outbreaks seem to indicate that they have no permanent connection with the sources whence those stronger vents obtain their supply of heated steam.

The facts disclosed by the study of the Vesuvian system of volcanoes afford the geologist a basis for many interesting conclusions.

In the first place, he notes that the greater part of the cones, all those of small size, are made up of finely divided rock, which may have been more or less cemented by the processes of change which go on within it. It is thus clear that the lava flows are unessential--indeed, we may say accidental--contributions to the ma.s.s.

In the case of Vesuvius they certainly do not amount to as much as one tenth of the elevation due to the volcanic action. The share of the lava in Vesuvius is probably greater than the average, for during the last six centuries this vent has been remarkably lavigerous.[8]

Observation on the volcanoes of other districts show that the Vesuvian group is in this regard not peculiar. Of nearly two hundred cones which the writer has examined, not more than one tenth disclose distinct lavas.

[Footnote 8: I venture to use this word in place of the phrase "lava-yielding" for the reason that the term is needed in the description of volcanoes.]

An inspection of the old inner wall of Monte Somma in that portion where it is best preserved, on the north side of the Atria del Cavallo, or Horse Gulch--so called for the reason that those who ascended Vesuvius were accustomed to leave their saddle animals there--we perceive that the body of the old cone is to a considerable extent interlaced with dikes or fissures which have been filled with molten lava that has cooled in its place. It is evident that during the throes of an eruption, when the lava stands high in the crater, these rents are frequently formed, to be filled by the fluid rock. In fact, lava discharges, though they may afterward course for long distances in the open air, generally break their way underground through the cindery cone, and first are disclosed at the distance of a mile or more from the inner walls of the crater. Their path is probably formed by riftings in the compacted ashes, such as we trace on the steep sides of the Atria del Cavallo, as before noted. For the further history of these fissures, we shall have to refer to facts which are better exhibited in the cone of aetna.

The amount of rock matter which has been thrown forth from the volcanoes about the Bay of Naples is very great. Only a portion of it remains in the region around these cones; by far the greater part has been washed or blown away. After each considerable eruption a wide field is coated with ashes, so that the tilled grounds appear as if entirely sterilized; but in a short time the matter in good part disappears, a portion of it decays and is leached away, and the most of the remainder washes into the sea. Only the showers, which acc.u.mulate a deep layer, are apt to be retained on the surface of the country. A great deal of this powdered rock drifts away in the wind, sometimes in great quant.i.ties, as in those cases where it darkened the sky more than a thousand miles from the cone. Moreover, the water of the steam which brought about the discharges and the other gases which accompanied the vapour have left no traces of their presence, except in the deep channels which the rain of the condensing steam have formed on the hillsides. Nevertheless, after all these subtractions are made, the quant.i.ty of volcanic matter remaining on the surface about the Bay of Naples would, if evenly distributed, form a layer several hundred feet in thickness--perhaps, indeed, a thousand feet in depth--over the territory in which the vents occur. All this matter has been taken in relatively recent times from the depths of the earth. The surprising fact is that no considerable and, indeed, no permanent subsidence of the surface has attended this excavation. We can not believe that this withdrawal of material from the under-earth has resulted in the formation of open underground s.p.a.ces. We know full well that any such, if it were of considerable size, would quickly be crushed in by the weight of the overlying rocks. We have, indeed, to suppose that these steam-impelled lavas, which are driven toward the vent whence they are to go forth in the state of dust or fluid, come underground from distances away, probably from beneath the floors of the sea to the westward.

Although the sh.o.r.es of the Bay of Naples have remained in general with unchanged elevation for about two thousand years, they have here and there been subjected to slight oscillations which are most likely connected with the movement of volcanic matter toward the vents where it is to find escape. The most interesting evidence of this nature is afforded by the studies which have been made on the ruins of the Temple of Serapis at Puzzuoli. This edifice was constructed in pre-Christian times for the worship of the Egyptian G.o.d Serapis, whose intervention was sought by sick people. The fact that this divinity of the Nile found a residence in this region shows how intimate was the relation between Rome and Egypt in this ancient day. The Serapeium was built on the edge of the sea, just above its level. When in modern days it began to be studied, its floor was about on its original level, but the few standing columns of the edifice afford indubitable evidence that this part of the sh.o.r.e has been lowered to the amount of twenty feet or more and then re-elevated. The subsidence is proved by the fact that the upper part of the columns which were not protected by the _debris_ acc.u.mulated about them have been bored by certain sh.e.l.lfish, known as _Lithodomi_, which have the habit of excavating shelters in soft stone, such as these marble columns afford. At present the floor on which the ruin stands appears to be gradually sinking, though the rate of movement is very slow.

Another evidence that the ejections may travel for a great distance underground on their way to the vent is afforded by the fact that Vesuvius and aetna, though near three hundred miles apart, appear to exchange activities--that is, their periods of outbreak are not simultaneous. Although these elements of the chronology of the two cones may be accidental, taken with similar facts derived from other fields, they appear to indicate that vents, though far separated from each other, may, so to speak, be fed from a common subterranean source. It is a singular fact in this connection that the volcano of Stromboli, though situated between these two cones, is in a state of almost incessant activity. This probably indicates that the last-named vent derives its vapours from another level in the earth than the greater cones. In this regard volcanoes probably behave like springs, of which, indeed, they may be regarded as a group. The reader is doubtless aware that hot and cold springs often escape very near together, the difference in the temperature being due to the depth from which their waters come forth.

As the accidents of volcanic explosion are of a nature to be very damaging to man, as well as to the lower orders of Nature, it is fit that we should note in general the effect of the Neapolitan eruptions on the history of civilization in that region. As stated above, the first Greek settlements in this vicinity--those on the island of Ischia--were much disturbed by volcanic outbreaks, yet the island became the seat of a permanent and prosperous colony. The great eruption of 79 probably cost many hundred lives, and led to the abandonment of two considerable cities, which, however, could at small cost have been recovered to use. Since that day various eruptions have temporarily desolated portions of the territory, but only in very small fields have the ravages been irremediable. Where the ground was covered with dust, it has in most places been again tillable, and so rapid is the decay of the lavas that in a century after their flow has ceased vines can in most cases be planted on their surfaces. The city of Naples, which lies amid the vents, though not immediately in contact with any of them, has steadfastly grown and prospered from the pre-Christian times. It is doubtful if any lives have ever been lost in the city in consequence of an eruption, and no great inconvenience has been experienced from them. Now and then, after a great ash shower, the volcanic dust has to be removed, but the labour is less serious than that imposed on many northern cities by a snowstorm.

Through all these convulsions the tillage of the district has been maintained. It has ever been the seat of as rich and profitable a husbandry as is afforded by any part of Italy. In fact, the ash showers, as they import fine divided rock very rich in substances necessary for the growth of plants, have in a measure served to maintain the fertility of the soil, and by this action have in some degree compensated for the injury which they occasionally inflict.

Comparing the ravages of the eruptions with those inflicted by war, unnecessary disease, or even bad politics, and we see that these natural accidents have been most merciful to man. Many a tyrant has caused more suffering and death than has been inflicted by these rude operations of Nature.

From the point of view of the naturalist, aetna is vastly more interesting than Vesuvius. The bulk of the cone is more than twenty times as great as that of the Neapolitan volcano, and the magnitude of its explosions, as well as the range of phenomena which they exhibit, incomparably greater. It happens, however, that while human history of the recorded kind has been intimately bound up with the tiny Vesuvian cone, partly because the relatively slight nature of its disturbances permitted men to dwell beside it, the larger aetna has expelled culture from the field near its vent, and has done the greater part of its work in the vast solitude which it has created.[9]

[Footnote 9: In part the excellent record of Vesuvius is due to the fact that since the early Christian centuries the priests of St. Januarius, the patron of Naples, have been accustomed to carry his relics in procession whenever an eruption began. The cessation of the outbreak has been written down to the credit of the saint, and thus we are provided with a long story of the successive outbreaks.]

aetna has been in frequent eruption for a very much longer time than Vesuvius. In the odes of Pindar, in the sixth century before Christ, we find records of eruptions. It is said also that the philosopher Empedocles sought fame and death by casting himself into the fiery crater. There has thus in the case of this mountain been no such long period of repose as occurred in Vesuvius. Though our records of the outbreaks are exceedingly imperfect, they serve to show that the vent has maintained its activity much more continuously than is ordinarily the case with volcanoes. aetna is characteristically a lava-yielding cone; though the amount of dust put forth is large, the ratio of the fluid rock which flows away from the crater is very much greater than at Vesuvius. Nearly half the cone, indeed, may be composed of this material. Our s.p.a.ce does not permit anything like a consecutive story of the aetnean eruptions since the dawn of history, or even a full account of its majestic cone; we can only note certain features of a particularly instructive nature which have been remarked by the many able men who have studied this structure and the effects of its outbreak.

The most important feature exhibited by aetna is the vast size of its cone. At its apex its height, though variable from the frequent destruction and rebuilding of the crater walls, may be reckoned as about eleven thousand feet. The base on which the volcanic material lies is probably less than a thousand feet above the sea, so that the maximum thickness of the heap of volcanic ejections is probably about two miles. The average depth of this coating is probably about five thousand feet, and, as the cone has an average diameter of about thirty miles, we may conclude that the cone now contains about a thousand cubic miles of volcanic materials. Great as is this ma.s.s, it is only a small part of the ejected material which has gone forth from the vent. All the matter which in its vaporous state went forth with the eruption, the other gases and vapours thus discharged, have disappeared. So, too, a large part of the ash and much of the lava has been swept away by the streams which drain the region, and which in times of eruption are greatly swollen by the accompanying torrential rains. The writer has estimated that if all the emanations from the volcano--solid, fluid, and gaseous--could be heaped on the cone, they would form a ma.s.s of between two and three thousand cubic miles in contents. Yet notwithstanding this enormous outputting of earthy matter, the earth on which the aetnean cone has been constructed has not only failed to sink down, but has been in process of continuous, slow uprising, which has lifted the surface more than a thousand feet above the level which it had at the time when volcanic action began in this field. Here, even more clearly than in the case of Vesuvius, we see that the materials driven forth from the crater are derived not from just beneath its foundation, but from a distance, from realms which in the case of this insular volcano are beneath the sea floors.

It is certain that here the migration of rock matter, impelled by the expansion of its contained water toward the vent, has so far exceeded that which has been discharged through the crater that an uprising of the surface such as we have observed has been brought about.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Mount aetna, seen from near Catania. The imperfect cones on the sky line to the left are those of small secondary eruptions._]

There are certain peculiarities of Mount aetna which are due in part to its great size and in part to the climatal conditions of the region in which it lies. The upper part of the mountain in winter is deeply snow-clad; the frozen water often, indeed, forms great drifts in the gorges near the summit. Here it has occasionally happened that a layer of ashes has deeply buried the ma.s.s, so that it has been preserved for years, becoming gradually more inclosed by the subsequent eruptions.

At one point where this compact snow--which has, indeed, taken on the form of ice--has been revealed to view, it has been quarried and conveyed to the towns upon the seacoast. It is likely that there are many such ma.s.ses of ice inclosed between the ash layers in the upper part of the mountain, where, owing to the height, the climate is very cold. This curious fact shows how perfect a non-conductor the ash beds of a volcano are to protect the frozen water from the heat of the rocks about the crater.