Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1898-11-12

| SAILING INTO a MARINE VOLCANO.
vestigation showed that instead of a gale
an Ominous calm prevailed, the thick, hot
atmosphere forcshadowing danger. AS the
crew stood spcllbound the atmosphere be-
| came scorching hot, and Immediately be-
hind the vessel appeared what seemed to
| be an immense geyser rushing and seeth-
| ing hundreds of feet in the air and Great
ing monster waves which threatened to
engulf the ship and the precious lives
aboard. Amid the dangers of the occasion,
| for which the well trained crew was en-
| tirely unprcparcd, every man watched the
| fearful spectacle in awe, when from the
| very heart of tho midocean fountain there
| was prccipitatCd a mass of molten matter,
bringing forcibly to mind the narrow
| escape the vessel had experienced.
As soon as a breeze freshcned sufficient
1 ly the ship was maneuVcrcd about ard ap-
preached within mile of the magnificent
| jutting fountain whose torrent they had
| miraculously escaped and which now in
| creased in force rather than diminished.
| As the hours went by the crew in the rig
| eing watched the phenomena. All that
| day, indeed far into the night, so long rs
| the visual angle did not obscure il, the
bubbling mountain of steam and molten
| matter from old oceans bed continued to
burst forth, shedding a Iurid glare on the.
heavens as far aS the eve could reach.
In his report 10 his owners in Liverpool,
| n copy of which was furnished TO United
States photographer Harry 4. Hayden,
Captain Cannon incidentally mentions the
phenomena and says: The disturbance
was something the like of which / never
experienced in the many years have fol-
lowed the sea, and for the moment was
struck specchless. The first thought was
that we had run into waterspout, but
when I reached the deck these fears wero
soon removed, and l was at once struck by
the overwhelming beauty OF the sight it
was my good fortune TO witness / have
several times witnessed a volcano in action
ashore, but never before did I see anything
SO stupcndous!y beautiful. Not only was
the fiery mass in evidence, but all around
il was a column of water boiling and
seethinG, through which the interior light
cast its rays. producing an ever changing
Kaleidoscope of all the colors of tbe rain
how merged together in combinations the
beauties of which it Is beyond human
tongue TO describe. venture To say that
were all the electric fountains the world
has ever seen merged into one the effect
would not approach this remarkable vol
canic display nature was making in the
wilds Of the japanese sea
Early in the year SOP the British freight
steamship Batavia, while blowing through
the waters from Great Britain TO Japan.
narrowly escaped laundering in what
proves t. re almost the identical location
where Captain Cannon saw the marine
volcano in operation. On that OCCASION.
however, the demonstration simply took
the form OF a fountain the waters tiashinp
hundreds OF feet in the air, accompanied
by the rcdhot center that added novelty
To the spectacle, Captain Cannon reports |
i be phenomena were widely published
at the time, but the ma iority OF seafaring |
men who read Of IL poohpoohed the sensa-
tional story told and asserted that the /
freighter had merely encountered 4 water
spout common in these waters The lOca-
ton where the two phenomena were wit
messed is latitude 81 55. longitude I44I5 /
minutes east, and all ship captains who /
have passed through these waters recall 1
that the atmosphere was always Cypress
lively hot and that general thing the
wind was exher a calm Or a bowling gale. /