SEISMIC PHENOMENA.
[To THE EDITOR OW THE "SPECTATOR:1
Sia,—The possible interdependence of the California horror and the Vesuvius eruption suggests to me to send you these notes. I have a fish hatchery at Innishannon, in Ireland, which is fed by springs issuing from a steep hill a hundred yards away. Mr. F. Stenning, who has charge of the hatchery and stock ponds, noticed one afternoon that the flow from the springs had fallen off by one-half ; such a reduction endangered his charge, and, occurring at a moment's notice, seemed quite outside Nature's laws. About three hours later the flow was again as normal. From the newspapers the day following he learned of the earthquake in Calabria. The late Senator Wolcott, of Colorado, who was a regular visitor to Karlsbad, told me that a previous eruption of Vesuvius greatly reduced the yield of the Karlsbad springs. It would be interesting to know whether any such phenomenon was observed this month at Karlsbad. Again, in the case of the Mont Pelee disaster, observers of that eruption were unanimous that the poisonous fumes which overwhelmed the town were those of half-burned petroleum. Now the great oil geysers of Spindle Top, in Texas, had up to that time been flowing at a tremendous pressure, and after Mont Pelee there was a subsidence of yield quite without parallel in the history of oilfields. A quarter of a century before Spindle Top was discovered the oils, probably from this field, were observed to escape at certain spots in the ocean and to saturate the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Coasting vessels in stress of weather had long used these oil zones as harbours of refuge. Is it conceivable that Mont Pelee may have exploded the Texas hydrocarbons ?
Nerill Holt.
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