Abstract
THE most important geological work done at Bath this year related to volcanic and earthquake phenomena. Dr. Johnston-Lavis gave an account of the recent eruption in Vulcano, and read the letter which has already appeared in the Times from Mr. Narliau, a deeply interested and much-injured witness of the whole occurrence. The chief features seem to have been the ejection of very large blocks to a great distance—one, measuring 10 yards in length, having been found three-quarters of a mile from the crater—and the occurrence of flames, probably caused by the combustion of sulphur deposits. This paper was illustrated by lantern photographs taken by Dr. Tempest Anderson three months before the event. The latter gentleman also exhibited photographs of Vesuvius, Stromboli, and Etna, showing different phases of eruption. Dr. Lavis presented a report on Vesuvius, describing various new sections cut through the tuffs and lavas of Vesuvius and the Phlegrean fields. The report announced the completion of the author's map of Vesuvius, and claimed to have established that the volcanic activity of the mainland had followed a regular course southwards. The same author announced the discovery of leucite in a lava from Etna, and in another paper attributed the conservation of heat in volcanic chimneys to latent heat set free on the passage of magma from a vitreous to a crystalline condition. Among the other papers were one by Dr. Claypole, who pointed out that in many places, and notably in the Appalachians, strata had been forced up from a depth greater than five miles, the supposed depth of the “layer of no strain”; and one by Mr. Logan Lobley, who attributed (1) the formation of lava to heat in the earth's interior inducing chemical action, (2) its ejection to the expansion due to change from a solid to a fluid state, and (3) explosive eruption to the access of sea- and land-water to the volcanic focus. In the discussion a good deal of misunderstanding seemed to arise from the confusion of “zone of no strain” with “zone of no cooling.”
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Geology at the British Association . Nature 38, 596–597 (1888). https://doi.org/10.1038/038596a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/038596a0