Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1921-02-24

hold up good sized stone il you
throw one on it. At other times this
scum breaks. up and boils red while
another part of the caldron is grey.
The scientists again say that below
this motion burning mass is a pad
substance that supports the boiling
lava. Anyway in the center of the burn
ing lava is an island of rock-sharp
Jagged rock with two sharp peaks
probably 100 feet high.
Burning Lava Rising
The burning lava has been rising
for several weeks and now fills the
pit to the brimn 1t is 200 or ESQ feet
higher than usual Had I come few
weeks ago should have stood on the
brim and looked down $50 feet to the
burning lava whereas was just on a
level with the surface of it and stood
on the lava that overf1owed only last
Sunday and has cooled since then.
And the surprising thing to me is that
the island Of rock is just as high
above the surface of lava, now as it
was when the surface of burning lava
was $50 feet lower in the caldron. Tt
must be that the pad of pasty material
supports the island of rock as we'll
as the burning lava surrounding it and
for several weeks the pad has been
being pushed up by gasses underneath
it, and the mass of burning lava with
the island of rock in the middle of it
has risen to the brim of the caldron.
It spilled over Sunday and today / was
fortunate enough to see a small flow
of lava. The end of the stream that
we watched was nat more than Is feet
wide. But we could see spots of red
farther back that showed it to be a
hundred or more feet in width. The
surface was silvery grey, and Nhe
surface was never angular and never
fiat, always curved. Here and there,
a red mass would push out of the
side of this grey mass, flow gently as
a mass Of thick cake dough might
flow. In a few moments this would
turn grey and the glowing, flowing,
lava would start out in another place.
And it would push up slope just as
easily as it flowed down
We put postal cards in a split
stick and held them near to scorch,
burning our faces while protecting
pull out small quantities on the end
of the stick, and make depression
with the stick and drop coin in, and
push the lava around the coin to hold
lit. This hardened very quickly and
was shiny black. It is very brittle.
Fireworks Tame
No one can describe the volcano. I
sat for three hours at time watching
| it play Fourth of July fireworks will
always seem tame besides the-last
might spent at the volcano. 1t was
worse than three-ring circus be-
cause there were more than three
places to keep watch of. At one time
for as much as twenty minutes there
was display in one spot like a dozen
Roman candles going off at once At
the same time there were rockets
shooting in several other places, and
in q third direction there were five or
Isix giant gaso jeto flaming, and all
this time the whole caldron was boil
ing as usual
OF course they advertise that there
has never been a catastrophe, so Wis
itOrs need not fear to come. But an
entire native army was annihilated
not much more than 100 years ago
and I am glad I saw without being
engulfed in the burning lava.
Dine on Cocoanuts
We left the Volcano House at 9
a. M, January 14th, and drove through
the Puma district to EIilo The direct
road is only 81 miles to Eilo, but it
lis nearly 100 miles the way we came.
We stopped at cocoanut grove and
hired a boy to climb a tree and
throw down some nuts We drank the
milk and ate the nuts, which are cas-
Ter to chew than the dried nuts. The
beach near these trees was black sand.
l suppose the waves have ground up
the volcanic rock. We drove through
a district where a man sank $150,00O
trying to start a coffee plantation
Tue coffee mill (for taking the hull
off the berry and cleaning the two
kernels OUT is now used as a church.
We ate our lunch on the shore where
the waves dashed against the lava
rocks and threw the spray high in the
air. And we got a pail of water from
Hawaiian woman who was weaving
a straw hat.
They have to depend on rain wat
er in the entire southern part of the
island as the lava rock is very porous
and rain that falls on the ground sinks
and is lost. So every house has to
have either a cement lined pool in
the ground or set of wooden tanks to