The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-03-29

/ ana cII1lldJlc elements so ASSIST l1iS
student as they do in Hawaii. 1t is
an out-of-door laboratory where all
kinds of field work may be done every
day in the year.
MARINE ZOOLOGY.
A brief statement of what is here
will be enough to stir the wise. Five
hundred varieties of fish have been
found in the waters about the islands.
1t is estimated that there are not less
than one hundred more that are yet
unnamed. Hawaif's corals doubly in
vite study: they are of infinite variety;
| they are most easily accessible. The
coral reefs lie all about the islands
! and to these of an afternoon a student
may go as to natural aquaria and
watch the complete unfolding of the
coral polyps. Then there are the
| crustaceans. Fifty years ago Dana
| was able to name and classify two
| hundred and fifty species around the
! islands. The further study of these
| awaits another Dana. The marine
| shells, while often lacking in brilliancy
| of color, are of great scientific inter-
est both in distribution and variation.
OF their cousins, the land shells, there
are more than five hundred varieties.
collections of these, both in number
of shells and of types.
VOLCANIC GEOLOGY.
OF volcanic phenomena, geological
and spectacular, there is no end.
Active craters, whose inmost workings
may be safely studied from years
end to years end furnish interest for
the student and entertainment of the
rarest kind to every visitor These
craters with lava flows of every sort
are convenient and accessible. After
volcano has oeen seen in good working
order, there is great interest in the ex-
tinct craters in which the islands
abound On the island of Maui is the
largest extinct volcano in the world.
HaIeakala, or the House of the Sun"
is fifteen miles in circumference and
ten thousand feet high. When there
has been safety of craters, explosive
and non-explosive, pit and cone craters.
yet there remain the unexplained myS-
teries of the emergence and submerg
ence of the islands. Pearl Harbor with
its perpendicular banks and precipitous
Waipio furnish the foundation of many
a fine spun theory. One scientist esti-
mates that Oahus oldest hill emerged
youngest showed her head about five
thousand years ago. This difference
in time gives some conception of the
opportunities to conjecture that here
abound and of the problems and stud
les that present themselves in HawaiTs
serred hills. sculptured by erosion in a
thousand tropic storms
BOTANY.
Hawaii stands almost unique in
botanical fields. Here may be grown
almost every specimen of plant from
temperate and tropic zone. Palms and
pines, crocuses and cereus plants thrive
alike where the trade wind blows. Sea-
sons wait not for the flight of months,
but follow one another in quick sue
cession. All nature blooms in Hawaii.
The world furnishes no better examples
Of an Insular Flora than are to be found
here. The indigenous and imported
plants are a mine for every botanist
to work.
THE BISHOP MUSEUM
An account of the opportunities for
study is not complete without a mem
ton of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Mu-
scum, which ranks among the first ten
of Americas museums. Here trained
ed a Wonderful objection, of whose
wealth the student may avail himself.
a brief enumeration suff1ces: The mu-
scum has the most complete collection
of Hawaiian antiquities in the world
a good collection of Polynesian an
tiquities, besides which there are ten
thousand species of landshells named
and catalogued; and complete set of
Hawaiian birds many of which are
now unobtainable; a rare assortment
of Hawaiian feather work and a
splendid collection of fishes, including
types found by the staff, and co-types
from the U. S. Fish Commission coll
| lection, as we'll as casts in colors of
| about four-fifths of all the fishes il
| Illustrated in the u. S. Fish Commits
! sion Report.
SCHOOLS FOR CHILDREN.
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