with the red, yellow, and white products of the solfatara. But the richest volcanic colors are seen in a solfatara opening in an eminence on the outer and southern side of the volcano. An explosion has laid bare a vertical wall above a mysterious opening, and from this opening different gases have passed out and coated the walls with yellow, white, orange, red, and violet incrustations; these hues are remarkably bright and are enhanced by the setting of ebony which surrounds them. "The inundations of lava poured out from a series of pits or bocche di fuogo situated in a line below the cone, on the rent from which escaped all that overflowed from Etna in 1886. They are empty monticles, which have the appearance of having been formed of burned coke. They are two, three, and ten metres high, and it is difficult to believe, on looking at them, that they could have given birth to this immense sea of lava which has climbed cones thirty to forty metres high, and which rises with a formidable hill in its middle. "All this coke which we see is not lava, it is only slag. But this slag, these scoriæ, cover everything up, though it would not have been visible had there not been a deep excavation along the course of the lava stream, next to the pits. This great ravine, nearly a kilometre in length, thirty to fifty metres in width, and from four to twelve metres deep, with vertical walls, enabled us to see the internal structure of a lava stream. It is formed by the superposition of alternating layers of compact lava, a yard thick, with black ashes. In certain places we could count five or six layers, one over the other. "It appears, then, that the lava stream, itself the result of the eruption, is formed of sheets of lava, which flow out one after the other and pass one above the other, each covering the scoriæ, or rather a part of the scoriæ of the surface of the preceding layer, without filling the interstices. But while layers of ashes or scoriæ only ten to twenty inches thick separate the lava layers, the sides and ends of the lava streams form great heaps of large pieces of loose coke, amid which one can detect the compact lava." We had left our mules some distance down the mountain, and, while the guide went for them, as we were to return by a different route, I strolled about, enjoying the wondrously beautiful scene far below. A gentle sirocco was blowing, and far down beyond the fields of ashes and cinders a soft, delicate haze hung over the land of the vine and orange, and spread over the deep blue Mediterranean beyond. We returned to Nicolosi in the hot afternoon sun, passing around by the south of Monte Rosso, skirting the right side of the eastern lava stream, whose entire length was about four miles, and whose rough, broken surface is so well represented by the photograph here reproduced. The stream ceased flowing when within three hundred and seventy yards of the building nearest the volcano. It was interesting to observe that the stream did not actually plow up the loose volcanic earth of the vineyards, but simply rolled or flowed over the surface without throwing up the soil. The angle of the sides of the stream is steep and the sides are rough, like frozen foam or congealed slag from a furnace. The same afternoon we returned to Catania, visited the university, and the next day found us on our way to Taormina, catching from the window of our car fine views of Mount Etna. The accompanying picture will give a faint idea of the wondrously fine view of the volcano as seen from the walls of the interesting ruins of the Greek-Roman theater at Taormina, as well as the town itself, and the flanks of Etna studded with villages and hamlets. It is a view said to be the finest in all Europe, and the claim we will not dispute. Certainly a more magnificent outlook, combining the attractions of a land with a history so rich and varied, of so majestic a volcano, of so fair a sky, and of a sea so beautiful as on that bright sunny April day, never met our gaze. And then the view of Etna at sunset, from the terrace of the Hôtel Timeo, and again when its cone was lit up by the rising sun, were memorable scenes. The volcano was also kind enough to flame up at night, the light of the glowing but subdued volcanic fires at the bottom of the crater being reflected in the darkness upon the clouds of steam hovering above. The fires of Etna have subsided, only to be succeeded in that beautiful island by a far more terrible social upheaval; the burden of agrarian wrongs, inflicted by the wealthy landholders, and of the too heavy taxes causing a sudden and widespread volcanic uprising on the part of the downtrodden peasants. Let us hope that by timely concessions and patient readjustments of the relation between landlords and tenants a calm as serene and pervasive as to outward appearance at least reigned over the fair island a few years ago, may speedily return. THE Rev. Lorimer Fison explained the classificatory system of relationship to the British Association by an examination of the descendants of two brothers and two sisters to the third generation. The Fuegian terms of relationship were taken in the first place as an example of the system. These divide the sexes in any one generation into groups of non-marriageable persons and other groups of marriageable persons. Next, the same relations and their descendants in an Australian tribe were taken, when precisely the same groups appeared as the result of the division of the community into two exogamous intermarrying divisions. It was inferred that wherever the classifactory terms appeared these divisions had existed in the past. VOL. XLVI.-42 THE LESSON OF THE FOREST FIRES. BY BELA HUBBARD, LL. D. VOYAGERS on the upper lakes in August last were involved in clouds of smoke which settled over the waters. These were often so dense as to render navigation dangerous and to occasion frequent collisions. They obscured the sun, which appeared a dull red ball in the sky. This smoke extended as far east as the Atlantic and south to Georgia. The cause was soon apparent: forest fires were raging in the lands about the lakes. By these fires in lower Michigan property to the extent of thousands of dollars was destroyed; in the Upper Peninsula the burned area is reported at over one thousand square miles. But these devastations were insignificant compared with those in Wisconsin and Minnesota, in each of which States the losses amount to many millions of dollars. In Wisconsin the areas burned over ranged from fifty to one hundred and forty miles in extent. Individual lumbermen lost in standing pine from ten thousand to five hundred thousand dollars. All this was accom-. panied with the destruction of entire villages and crops as well as great loss of human life. A witness reports, "The bodies which dot the heated and black expanse give the scene the appearance of a battlefield." From Minnesota the news is even more appalling. Between Pine City and Carleton, a distance of one hundred and thirty miles, whole towns were swept out of existence. In one alone, Hinckley, at least two hundred people perished. Nineteen villages are wholly or partially destroyed, and many million feet of lumber. It is fairly computed that in this State alone five thousand square miles in area have been thus devastated. Minnesota contains about seventy thousand square miles; supposing two thirds of this area to be timbered land, one may count on the fingers of his two hands how many years of such devastation will deprive this State of every vestige of its timber. Terrible as has been the destruction from forest fires in 1894, the phenomena to which it has borne witness have been by no means unprecedented in our history during the last half century. I will recall those of a single year only. The present generation can not have forgotten the year 1871, made memorable by the great fire in Chicago, preceded by forest fires in Wisconsin and Minnesota and followed by similar fires in Michigan. From July to November, a period of five months, the rainfall in the latter State did not exceed six inches, and the entire precipitation of the year was only two thirds the normal amount. Early in October disastrous fires overspread portions of Wisconsin and Minnesota, burning over three thousand miles of territory. On the 8th of October occurred the great fire which consumed a large part of Chicago. On the same night the cities of Holland and Manistee, in Michigan, were laid in ashes, and during the week succeeding came news of devastating fires in other parts of the State. The new county of Huron was almost entirely swept over, and a large part of Sanilac County. Nearly all the villages on the Lake Huron coast were destroyed, and at least five thousand inhabitants left houseless. Houses, fences, crops, timber, all were burned; and many people perished, being unable to escape the rapid march of the flames and smoke. Not less than two thousand square miles of country, wholly or partially timbered, were completely burned over in Michigan during this disastrous year. The Lower Peninsula contains forty-four thousand square miles. If we estimate about one half, or twenty thousand square miles, as timbered, it would require but ten such fires as that of 1871 to sweep the State clean. Forest fires nearly as disastrous have occurred in other States and other years, but these will suffice for our purpose. What is the origin of these forest fires? Are they preventable? Upon whom lies the responsibility? These questions open a large field of inquiry and involve the whole subject of our forest system, or want of system, and management good or bad of our woodlands, from the first settlement of the country. This is too large a subject to be treated as it deserves in a single paper, but even a brief consideration may make clear facts of the greatest scientific importance and serve to inculcate a lesson which can not be too strongly enforced. The extent and magnificence of the forest growth of the United States at the beginning of our existence as a nation surpassed that of any land of equal extent on the globe. In the number of species and the size of its trees, both deciduous and evergreen, it exceeded by five times that of Europe. Such a forest spread almost unbroken from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. An equally dense forest, mostly conifers, and many of a size before unknown, occupied the Pacific slope; while between stretched an almost treeless region comprising nearly half the territory of the United States. What a treasury of wealth belonged to the new nation in its woodlands if properly husbanded! But to its first possessors these were an incumbrance, to be got rid of as speedily as possible, in order that place might be made for another source of national wealth-agriculture. Since that early period how great has been the change! The forest area, which seemed to its first possessors so vast, and such an obstacle to civilized progress, has in a single century almost disappeared. |