ASHES AND LAVA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 21, 15 June 1914, Page 6

ASHES AND LAVA.

AMBRYM VOLCANO. DRBARY DESOLATION. ("Sydney Sun.")

The. island of Ambrym, in the New Hebrides, is to-day one of the dreariest spots on earth.■ Great masses of dark cloud and vapour are heaped high abovo its volcano-jumbled surface, and, for many miles about where Dip Point mission used to stand, the 'land is desolate and barren, seamed with dried lava, and grey with ashes, like a landscape of the moon. In all that district there is not a green thing, but here and there on the tortured mountain sides little bursts of sulphuroii:-) vapour break forth, and hang for a nviment on the humid air, like weird plants in an enchanted country. Then they devolve and iloat away, to be replaced by still another grotesque crop.

I The Y'feiiiic eruption wihieh laid waste I several thousand acre- of Ambrym. and | which, altered the configuration of the island, still continues, hut the angry .thundering of the disturbance, which is described by those who -heard it as 'being loader than hundreds of cannon fired together, has now sunk to occasional distant rumbles, like a quick passage on a kettledrum. One thinks a.t first it is thunder, but the sound is too sharp and brisk. It is the rattling of millions of tons of boulders within the straining flanks of the steaming volcano. As one approaches Dip Point from the north the wonderful bush vegetation of the coast begins imperceptibly to change. Then one sees a cocoanut palm here and there with the leaves stained yellow where the volcanic ashes settling upon them have, smothered out their lives. On distant hilltop? there are long lines of trees—the skeletons of trees standing naked against the sky. The volcanic blast has stripped them bar?. On the mountain sides the once thick vegetation lias been burnt Mid swept :iwa' : v. Where there are deep, sheltered gul'.ies, a ribbon of green remains amidst the desolation to tell of the former riotous fertility of the place. Tho most impressive sight, however, is at Dip Point, or, rather, at the place where Dip Point used to be. ' The small cape has sunk under the ocean, carrying with it Dr Bowie's mission station, and there is now an inlet running into the island about «i mile. The water within it is boiling, and thin steam rises where it meets the lava covered shove. On the southern side of the inlet there is a hill of mud and lava, about fifty acres of new land reclaimed by the volcano from the sea. It is a remmrkablc fact that the land jutet south of Dip Point has escaped all injury. From Dip Point inland to the central mountains, and northward' for a mile, the land has been covered with a crust of lava; and northward again for a dozen miles the land is a waste of ashes; yet just south of Dip Point the. fertile toy .where the Roman Oithri'ic mission was situated has not been touched. The immunity of this mission h.-w had a great effect on the minds of the superstitious natives, and ninnv have come to eannp about the priest's house to enjoy the protection of ihU 1 '•fabrw'— also his hospitality, for the ashes have [destroyed the native gardens and bush fro its.