Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1902-07-31
MANY DANGER SPOTS
SOMETHING ABOUT THE DlSTRl-
BUTTON OF VOLCANOES.
OVER 800 ON THE GLOBE
This includes Only Live or Recently
Live Ones-A Great Ring of Fire
Surrounds the Pacific $4,000 Miles
in Lenath-FIows of Lava Like
Molasses.

The geographical distribution of
active volcanoes has an important
bearing on the scientific explanations,
of volcanic phenomena. An interest
ing statement of facts regarding such
distribution is presented in the Nation
al Geographic Magazine for June.
From this compilation we extract the
following data:
There are from 500 to $50 volca-
noes Oh the globe. This estimate in
cludes merely live volcanoes and vol
canoes which within recent times
have been in action. If We should
count the many mountains scattered
over the earth which show today
signs of volcanic action in the more
remote past, the estimate would have
to be increased by many hundreds.
Volcanoes would seem to be ar
ranged, with more or less symmetry
in belts circling the great oceans. A
ring Of fire surrounds the Pacific.
Starting at the South Shetland
Islands, several hundred miles south
of Cape Horn, a belt of volcanoes ex-
tends up the west coast to South
America, Central America and North
America; from Alaska it crosses the
Pacific along the Aleutian Islands to
Kamchatka; thence it follows the
east edge of the Pacific through the
kurile Islands, Japan, Formosa, the
Philippines, the Moluccas, the Solo
mon Islands, the North Hebrides, New
Zealand, and finally ends in Mounts
Terror and Erebus, on the Antarctic
Continent. The volcanoes forming
this great belt are in places ranged
in chains, as long as the west coast
of Central America and in the Aleu-
tan Islands; elsewhere they are sepa-
rated by long distances, but never
theless they would seem to have
some connection with each other.
Sometimes the line of volcanoes
surrounding the Pacific is very mar
row, as in Central America, and then
again it broadens hundreds of miles,
as in the Western United States,
where extinct volcanoes on the east
edge of the belt are hundreds of miles
from the ocean and distant from each
other.
Within this great Pacific circle of
volcanoes, $4,000 miles in length, are
many volcanic islands: the Ladrones,
the Hawaiian Islands, with the ia
nous Mauna Loa; the Galapagos, the
Samoan Islands, as we'll as the Tonga
and Fiji archipelagoes, and MANY
smaller groups. The coral islands
may be also classed as volcanic, as
they rest in great part On volcanic
foundations.
Eastward from the circle around the
Pacific branch belt extends through
Sumatra and Java. On the broken
isthmus which ages ago joined Asia
and Australia are over 100 volcanoes,
many of which are constantly belch-
ing forth mud, lava or ashes. This
is the great focus of volcanic action
of the earth
Round nearly three sides of the At
lantic basin volcanic districts are
scattered with some apparent sym
metry. In the far north, Hekla and
nearly one score others separate the
Atlantic from the Arctic ocean.
Stretching from Iceland, from north
to south, an irregular ridge bears the
volcanic mountains of the Azores, the
Cape Verde Islands, Ascension, ST.
Helena and Tristan da Cunha. On
the west edge of the Atlantic are the
volcanoes of the West Indies; but
north or south of the Antilles there
is not single volcano On the east
coast of America. The volcano belt
of the Mediterranean shore is pro-
longed to the mountains of Armenia
and Western Arabia. There are said
to be some volcanoes in Tibet and
Manchuria, but the explorer has not
yet located them.
Elisee Reclus has drawn attention
to the fact that the great centers of
volcanic action in the western and
eastern hemispheres are at exactly
opposite ends of the globe-are at
antipodes to each other-and that
these centers of activity are near tie
poles of flattening. They also flank,
one on the west and one on the east,
the immense circle around the Pacific.
Hekla, in Iceland, and Mauna Loa,
in the Hawaiian islands, simply pour
forth masses of lava that flows like
molasses. Vesuvius End Mount
Pelee, on the other hand represent
the explosive type of volcanoes, to
which also belong the volcanoes Of
nd Mayicn