Birmingham state herald., 1895-12-01
PILLARS OF FIRE IN MID-AIR
Magnificent Scene Witnessed Off the Alaskan Coast-Twenty Volcanoes in the
 Aleutan Chain.
San Francisco Chronicle.

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 The revenue cutter Commodore Perry returned yesterday from northern sea, where she has been confronted every night for weeks by gigantic line of fire As Captain Smith expresses It: ..The devils stokers have been stirring up the subterranean sea of flames that is supposed to lie thousands of feet under the Behring's bed, and as a consequence fully twenty of the forty volcanoes in the Aleutian chain are now active"
 The line of islands lying between the Behring sea and the Pacific ocean belong to the United States, and on them are probably the only active volcanoes lying within American territory. Much has been written of Bogaslov island, which has been throwing up cloud of steam at times for years, but it was supposed that all the other peaks on this singular line of islands were extinct craters only.
 Now, as far as the eye can reach, from any point in the Behring sea adjacent or even at a distance from the famous seal islands, the rising smoke and steam can be seen in both directions. The eruption is general and so very lively that at night the airy columns take on the reflections of the fires deep in the earth beneath the craters. Nowhere else on the globe can such sight be Wit messed. According to Captain Smith 1t is as wonderful as the fiery mysteries on Hawaii.
 In the daytime only the white smoke or steam is visible. As dusk comes and darkness follows the wonder grows. The brighter columns show up in the cola Alaskan night first, and as It gets oark other vivid curls of smoke are to be seen at greater distances. Sometimes, when the position of the observer is advanta- geous, a dozen or fifty of these modern nillars of fire are in sight.
 It Is thought that as the winter comes on the beauty of this strange scene will increase but few will be the beholders then for the chilly northern sea IS de- serted by the time November sets in. Even the whalers will be away from the nightly show of natures fireworks, for they are now seeking shelter in the coves and inlets off the Arctic hundreds of miles further north than these volcanoes. While the Perry expedition was in the Behring, though much of the time 1t was misty and foggy, and often, even at night, the view of the mighty escape valves was entirely obstructed by the haze.
 The show of subterranean force is the most noteworthy ever observed on Amer ican soil. As, proof of the mighty power that is at work beneath the islands a neck of land has been forced up out of the sea between Bogasloy and old Bogas- Joy and the islands are now one. It Is queer looking land, one of the r-,rf-as shown on the chart as connecting the Behring sea with the greater ocean to the southward. The rocks in this neck are manifestly of volcanic origin, bla elk and smooth in surface, as if once melted.
 T have my own theory about the erup- tion," said Captain Smith of the Perry yesterday "I believe there Is lake of fire far down in the earth that connects with the outlets of those volcanoes in the north and also with the volcanoes in Central America. I am told that in the Central Amepican states the volcanoes are especially active just now. While there Is no great eruption reported, there is steady activity, just such activity as is observed on that chain Of islands that I have been looking for all summer. I believe that the whole lake of fire Is now