Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1899-04-06
TAKEN ON THE BRINK
CAMERA HAS PRESERVED PIC
TUREs OF CRATER IN ERUPTION.
SOME ASTOUNDING PHOTOGRAPHS.
Professor Louis sambOn, Tells How,
mt Peril of Their Lives, His Party
Monster Of the Mountain.
(By Professor Louis Sambon-For the
Dispatch)


Dispatch)
| Let the camera fiend who sighs for new
subjects turn his apparatus on the crater
of a volcano. / have tried it, and can
bear witness to the difficulty and danger
attending the undertaking. our party Sc
lected Vulcano in the Lipari Islands as
the scene Of our Photographic exploits.
When we began the ascension of the vol
cano it had been for some time in erup-
ton, and we were all keyed up to the
highest pitch of excitement at the pros
pect before us.
We visited the alum grottoes in the
Rocca d'allume or Faragione, a great
mass OF trachitic rocks decomposed by
the action Of sulphurous acid 1t is pro-
badly the last remnant of an old sand
cone which has been wasted away. on
the side facing Vulcano it's base is all
pierced with burrows, where lived. like
beasts, the poor families employed for
the extraction Of sulphur boracic acid.
and other products which the "Fossa"
yielded before the eruption. In one OF
these miserable burrows | found a terra
Gotta whistle i'm the shape Of a bird. 1t
was sweet token of motherly love.
Then we directed our steps towards the
great eruptiye cone. We passed Il house,
the roof of which was broken in by a
huge boulder that had crashed its way
right through the building. a little far
ther on were the ruins Of large work
sheds, where the products Of the "Fossa"
used TO be roughly assorted, separated,
and packed
Between these rambling buildings and
the foot of the cone had extended a beau
tiful vineyard Of more than 2OO0O vines.
the emerald green OF its luxuriant foliage
almost flashing amongst the dark olive
color Of the surrounding broom jungle.
AS we approached the foot Of the cone,
we were struck by the boulders Of huge
size which strewed the ground I'm great
quantity One of them, about five feet
high, was still burning hot; it had fallen
that very morning at a distance of about
one mile from the crater.
These enormous lava balls were formed
by mass of pumice covered over by
thin crust of obsidian, all assured and
broken, and 6hrivelled into separate
shields, not unlike the bark of a pine
trunk. DR.. LAWS has called these mis-
siles "bread-crust bombs" and the name
IS appropriate, because they have certain
ly the appearance Of bread rolls though
their size might suggest that they had
been specially baked for the people of
Brobngnag.
This is how they are made: The dough-
that Is TO say. the lava in the upper part
OF the volcanic chimney-is in a state of
intense viscoslty. and rises and bulges
with the vapOr that accumulates beneath
IT, until the steam has gained sufficient
tension to burst and hurl the lava high
up into the air. shattered into a cloud OF
dust and fragments Each fragment,
while ascending, expands, because it con- |
tanS within its mass a quantity of water |
az an eXcessively-hig temperature. which !
turns into vapor as soon as IL is relieved /
from surrounding pressure. Meanwhile /
the mass cOols the external surface from
which the rising and expanding bubbles |
cannot escape. remains all full of cavities, !
like the crumb Of a loaf. The outer shell |
Or crust cools and hardens almost imme- |
liately, and is, therefore always burst |
by the spOngy mass which continues to |
expand In the interior. and often emerges |
IN large quantities through the rents. The |
broken crust contracts and turls up at |
the edges. exposing the bubbling pumice. |
pulled out I'm long glass filaments. The |
thickness Of the crust varies greatly. and |
has no connection with the size Of the
Some have a very thick. COM
)act CLASSY crust, which passes gradually |
nto the pumice of the interior These
nave always large. deep assures through |
which the pumice has bulged out extern
iively; others have a much thinner crust,
which Is assured all over into smaller
shields. and gives them the appearance OF
arge bolitas Of the Pampas rolled up In
,alls.
We broke a large quantity Of bombs to
xamine their structure. and found they |
obtained numerous fragments of previ-
,us elections which had fallen back into
he crater and mixed with the molten
ava. In some we found large masses or
uartz and felspar. which formed lovely
nilky-white patches in the black vitre-
us mass.
Some OF the bombs had embedded them
elves i'm the sand at the spot where they
ad fallen. but many of them had been
battered into fragments. Others fallen
n the sides OF the cone, had bounced and
ashed into the plain below. leaving long
racks OF eliptical holes |,
These MISSILES scattered all round like
uge fruit fallen from the greats vapory
inc which lowered ever and anon over
ne crater, made us cautious. and We |
Iambered up the west northwest slope |
, open order and not without certain
ceiling OF anxiety; more so because the |
lonster had not coughed for many hours. ]