My experiments with volcanoesJaggar, Thomas Augustus
Science
My experiments with volcanoes
Jaggar, Thomas Augustus
Geologists -- Biography; Volcanoes
Copra, the only commercial product, is bought and warehoused by two
Australian firms. The two grown sons of the manager of one assisted
me in tramping and photographing all over the island. The landing
at Angaha brought about the name Tin Can Island, for the visiting
steamers stopped a mile off shore and incoming mail, soldered into
large biscuit tins by the steamship engineer, was lowered into the
sea, tied together. The tins were towed in by the village policeman.
Outgoing mail was carried out in paper packages tied on top of sticks
and held aloft by hardy swimmers with hau wood poles, which they held
under their arms as floats. A short time after our trip a shark got a
swimmer, and canoes were adopted.
Thanks to the infrequent visits of vessels, the natives were unspoiled,
splendid specimens of the Polynesian race. The laws of Tonga required
every youth to cultivate an area of coconut trees and vegetables, and
the island was traversed by lovely trails. The houses and churches were
exquisite arched structures with thatched roofs, the beams tied with
coconut-fiber cords. There were native ministers, and the choirs were
superb. Services often started at 4 A.M.
My jobs were to take photographs with three cameras and make a
geological map. Northeast of the crater lake is a cluster of sand
hills, relics of an unusual explosive eruption in 1878, another
Hawaiian eruption date. This eruption was confined to one side of
the crater and came up the wall crack, between the encircling cliff
and the top of the lava plug under the lake. Its description is very
reminiscent of the Kilauea steamblasts of 1924.
We found a remarkable inhabitant of the sand in the malau bird, a small
partridge with big feet, with which it dug a deep hole in the sand for
its large egg which was then covered up. The sun’s heat did the rest,
with the warm sand acting as incubator. The young bird scratched its
way to freedom and flight without aid from its mother. Another item of
Dr. Kellers’ natural history was the flying fox, a giant bat with a
high singing note and odoriferous rookeries in the tops of trees. It
had a heavy flight like an eagle’s. A third item was the tiny black
crab, the size of a ten-cent piece, which lived in the midst of limey
flats at one side of the lake, where there were crusts that suggested
calcareous algae. The little black crabs, which lived by thousands in
the midst of the crust, resembled compact spiders.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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