FIG. 114.—“Bread-crust” lava projectile from the eruption of Volcano in 1888 (after Mercalli).]
When the writer visited the island some months later, the eruption was still so vigorous that the crater could not be reached. The ruined villa, smashed and charred, stood with its walls half buried in ash and lapilli, among which were partly smashed pumiceous lava projectiles. The entire _atrio_ about the mountain lay buried in cinder to the depth of several feet and was strewn with projectiles which varied in size from a man’s fist to several feet in diameter (Fig. 114). The larger of these exhibited the peculiar “bread-crust” surface and had generally been smashed by the force of their fall after the manner of a pumpkin which has been thrown hard against the ground. One of these projectiles fully three feet in diameter was found at the distance of a mile and a half from the crater. Though diminished considerably in intensity, the rhythmic explosions within the crater still recurred at intervals varying from four minutes to half an hour, and were accompanied by a dull roar easily heard at Lipari on a neighboring island six miles away. Simultaneously, a dark cloud of “smoke”, the peculiar “cauliflower cloud” or _pino_ mounted for a couple of miles above the crater (Fig. 115), and the rise was succeeded by a rain of small lava fragments or _lapilli_ outside the crater rim.
FIG. 115.—Peculiar “cauliflower cloud” or _pino_ composed of steam and ash, rising above the cinder cone of Volcano during the waning phases of the explosive eruption of 1888 (after a photograph by B. Hobson).]
There seems to be no good reason to doubt that Vulcanian cinder eruptions of this type differ chiefly in magnitude from the rhythmic explosion within the crater of Stromboli, if we except the elevation of a considerable quantity of accessory and older tuff which is derived from the inner walls of the crater and carried upward into the air together with the pasty cakes of fresh lava derived from the chimney. It is this accessory material which gives to the _pino_ its dark or even black appearance.
FIG. 116.—Double explosive eruption of Taal volcano on the morning of January 30, 1911.]
=The eruption of Taal volcano on January 30, 1911.=—The recent eruption of the cinder cone known as Taal volcano is of interest, not only because so fresh in mind, but because two neighboring vents erupted simultaneously with explosions of nearly equal violence (Fig. 116). This Philippine volcano lies near the center of a lake some fifteen miles in diameter and about fifty miles south of the city of Manila. After a period of rest extending over one hundred and fifty years, the symptoms of the coming eruption developed rapidly, and on the morning of January 30 grand explosions of steam and ash occurred simultaneously in the neighboring craters, and the condensed moisture brought down the ash in an avalanche of scalding mud which buried the entire island. Almost the entire population of the island, numbering several hundreds, was literally buried in the blistering mud (Fig. 117); and the gases from the explosions carried to the distant shores of the lake added to this number many hundred victims.