The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1902-06-05
The Volcanoes of the Philippines.

OF interest III connection with the
recent volcanic eruptious in the West
Indies. is the report of George F. Becker
on the geology of the Philippine Is
lands, which has just appeared in Pan
Ill OF the TWenty-tirst Annual Report
OF the | nttd States Geological Survey,
and which contains a review of every
thing bearing upon the geology OF these
islands.
The report deals i'll general with the
geologic and economic features of the
Islands, from eXtant reports on the
subject, and from studies in the field,
50 far as they could be carried on during
the disturbed period Of 1898 90, though
gtol0glZlng under arms and with a mill
tary escort was found to he more eXtit-
ing than profitable.
In many respects the Philippine
Islands SO closely resemble the West
Indies, especially in being the scene
OF violent past and present yolcan-
ic energy, that the chapter Of the
report on the active and extinct vol
canoes of the archipelago is at this
time particularly interesting. While
it was possible to visit but few of these
mountains, owing to the hostility of
/ the natives, much valuable informa-
| ton from local and other sources was
collected. Forty-nine of the eruptive
mountains We're located among the
islands, and their attitudes and the
dates of their eruptions obtained
Conspicuous among them is Mt Apo.
the highest mountain in the Philip
pines, which rises l0,761 feet above the
level of the sea. At Camiguin de
Mindanao, one of the most interesting
volcanoes of the group, a cone nearly
1000 feet in height has risen since 1871
over what was formerly a lake, the
basin of which was presumably an
ancient crater. Mayor, or the volcano
of Albay, is said to be the most sym
metrically beautiful cone in the world !:
and the famous Tail volcano, situated
on a small volcanic island in the lake
of Bonbon, is readily accessible from
Manila. The accounts of the erup-
tions of these and other volcanoes of
the group bear a striking resemblance
to those of the recent outburSt of Mt
Pelee in Martinique. OF an eruption
which occurred i'll the year l64l near
,)olo, the report quotes: ''the darkness
and atmospheric disturbance were so
great that the people of Jolo could
not perceive whence came the stuff
which fell from heaven upon them
And in one of the numerous eruptions
at Taal, loud detonations like dis
charges of artillery were heard, mean
descent stones were thrown out, and
great fire ran like river across the
island. The fire then shifted into lake
Bonbon throwing up water and ashes
in immense masses. ''Ihe water grew
hot and black, fish were strewn on the
beaches as if they bad been cooked,
and the air was so full of sulphurous
smells and the odor of dead fishes that
the inhabitants sickened." At one of
the eruptions of Albay, that in 1914,
/ 200 lives are said to have been lost.
In drawing comparisons between the
volcanoes of the Philippines and those
of the Dutch East Indies, Mr.. Becker
notes that Papandayang, i'll West
Java had great eruption in 1772, de-
stroying 40 villages. Galung Gung in
1922 destroyed ia villages, and it is
some measure of the violence of the
krakatoa explosion of 1888 that over
$4,000 people persisted.