PLUGGING A VOLCANO

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 78, 24 May 1946, Page 2

PLUGGING A VOLCANO

Feeble political measures used t© be described as “pills for earthquakes.” In his book, “The Elements Rage,” Mr F. W. Lane tells of such an attempted remedy for a similar phenomenon of Nature. In February, 1943, a far . *•’ a‘ Paricultin, Mexico, saw a w’.sp of smoke rising from his field, and tiied to stop the little hole from which it emerged with a small stone. Soon the hole had become an opening 30 feet deep. Within a week there had been thrown out of it debris from below in such quantities that instead of a hole there was now a volcano cone 550 feet high. This, during the following six months, increased to a height of 1500 feet, with a width at the base of three-quarters of a mile. The farmer, with his little round stone, had attempted to plug a terrible volcano that had now for the first time revealed itself.

Such things would be incredible were they not true. But then we remember that Vesuvius, on the terrible day that it erupted and buried Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae, 1766 years ago, was not known to be a volcano. On its side and summit grew grape vines, there were temples on the crest of Venus and Hercules.