The Eruption of Vesuvius in 1872 Part 7

The hydrochloric acid which escapes from a fumarole coming into contact with the scoriae near its mouth, produces chloride of iron, which is, therefore, not always obtained by sublimation, although, when the temperature is very high, chloride of iron is conveyed from the interior of the lava, and sublimes on the exterior and colder parts; for instance, the chloride of iron which issues from the eruptive cones is sometimes found sublimed on the rocks of Monte di Somma. When chloride of iron has been produced by sublimation, we may collect it inside a gla.s.s bell placed over the fumarole, or upon a piece of brick; but when it is produced by the action of hydrochloric acid on the scoriae, it will only be found on the scoriae themselves.

If, therefore, the origin of micaceous peroxide of iron were due to the decomposition of the sesqui-chloride of iron requiring a more elevated temperature for its decomposition, it would follow that its genesis would be easier near the discharging mouths, and more difficult on the lavas, but there the fact was verified: for example, in the great bomb on the fumarole, where we observed micaceous iron transformed into chloride of iron. We may therefore consider it _proved_ that some chlorides--for instance, chloride of sodium--issue from the lava itself, either being there pre-existent, or being formed there; and that others are derived from the oxides which precede them, as undoubtedly is the case with chloride of copper; hence, the theory that derives the oxides always from the chlorides cannot be considered true. Granting that this theory might be applicable to the origin of micaceous iron, we should still want to know how it is found with the paste of the new lava itself, which forms the exterior coating of the bombs above described.

Many of these rounded ma.s.ses, which have been rolled along by the lava, contain scoriae partly decomposed by the long action of the acids found on the fumaroles of the craters. They disintegrate easily, and have a more or less yellowish tint. In the greater number of cases the interior of these ma.s.ses is formed of leucitic lava, with cavities lined with micaceous iron. In short, their contents appeared to me quite similar to the material of the cone of 1871 and 1872, which in all probability was engulfed in the large creva.s.se or fissure that opened below it; and the fragments having thus fallen down into the lava, were enveloped by it and carried out by it after having been more or less rounded. The external envelope of these spheres is not at all scoriaceous, but compact and lithoidal, and sometimes composed of concentric folds or plaits.

As to the gaseous emanations of fumaroles, watery vapour with few exceptions comes first; this conveys the material which first appears in the sublimations, viz., sea-salt, and for the most part oxide of copper.

If the fumarole continue active, it pa.s.ses from the neutral period to the acid period, and first hydrochloric acid is produced, which, in small lava streams, never conveys chloride of iron, and rarely attacks the scoriae to form that salt, but expends its force in changing the sublimations already there. For this reason chloride of iron, though completely absent in the lavas of 1871, was abundantly found in those of the 26th April, 1872. Sulphurous acid follows hydrochloric at a later period, and sulphuretted hydrogen occasionally succeeds.

Having examined the gases of fumaroles by means of a graduated tube, and the pyrogallate of potash, I always found that it contained less oxygen than the surrounding atmosphere.

For several years I wished to see whether the fumaroles of the lavas had a period of evolution of carbonic acid, as sometimes happens with fumaroles near the craters, but I have always obtained negative results. I often found that the atmosphere on the lavas contained an excess of carbonic acid, but as these lavas had burnt many trees, and it was probable that carbonic acid springs had formed under the lava, I never considered it safe to form any conclusion on the subject.

IV.

BOMBS, LAPILLI AND ASHES.

The bombs ejected from the craters are like those carried down by the lavas, but of smaller size, and they seldomer contain a nucleus similar to those found in the latter. With the bombs properly so called, many pieces of incandescent lava were thrown up, and in their fall went beyond the base of the cone. A quant.i.ty of small scoriae varying in size accompanied these projectiles, and those fragments, which we call _lapilli_, fell at a greater distance. With the lapilli, and sometimes without them, the smoke carried a very minute dust or sand, which is generally called ashes. These ashes, when washed with water, lose soluble const.i.tuents which they have collected in the smoke--such as chloride of sodium and other chlorides and often free acids. The insoluble part originates in the detritus of lava, and with the microscope we can detect abundant fragments of those crystals which most frequently occur in the lava of the same eruption.

The lavas of 1871, which were eminently leucitic, and almost entirely deprived of pyroxene, resembled the ashes, which appeared to be fragments of crystals of leucite, more or less enveloped in the paste of the lava, so that having triturated the scoriae of the lava, and looked at the powder through the microscope, it was apparently quite the same as the ashes.

But at the beginning of the eruption of the 26th April, a white sand fell in the Atria del Cavallo, close to the Crocella[5], which on the dark scoriae of 1871 looked like snow. Its fall had a limit so well defined that one pa.s.sed without any gradation from white to black.

Having collected some of this sand that very morning, I put it up in white paper, for at that moment it was impossible for me to examine it.

Taking it out some days after, I found it had become reddish, and having put it under the microscope, I observed that it was exclusively formed of little pebbles more or less round, of a transparent vitreous matter, partly covered with a red substance. Fragments of green crystals occurred in this sand, upon which no red was perceptible. I consulted our eminent crystallographer, Arcangelo Scacchi, whether these little pebbles were leucite, as I suspected, and whether the green particles were pyroxene: he confirmed my suspicion, and remarked that the red colour was superficial only. We then washed a little of the sand in hot water, and saw the pebbles become whitish; but having heated some on platinum, we observed that they first turned black and then became perfectly white, proving that the red was a deposit of organic matter.

To see these leucites, rounded like small pebbles transported by a torrent, deprived of the soluble chlorides which generally accompany Vesuvian ashes, is a matter worthy of attention. Whilst heating this sand upon platinum, decrepitation was audible, which indicated the cracking of some of the little pebbles. It is evident, therefore, that crystals of leucite raised to a certain temperature may break, and thus we can understand how almost all Vesuvian ashes contain fragments of the said crystals enveloped in the paste of the lava. It is evident that the soluble part of the ashes is obtained from the smoke through which it pa.s.ses. On this occasion the smoke from the craters did not apparently contain much acids, for no bad smell was perceptible, and the water in which I washed the ashes scarcely reddened litmus paper. Even chloride of iron, which was so abundant in the lavas, was scarcely perceptible in the smoke, which almost exclusively deposited sea-salt on the surrounding rocks; I say sea-salt advisedly, and not chloride of sodium, to show that I include all that sea-salt contains. The slight disturbance it manifested with chloride of barium, and the small precipitate with oxalate of ammonia, reveal sulphate of lime, without excluding the possibility of the chloride.

But how can these ashes do so much injury to the vegetation of the ground they cover, especially at the first fall of rain? I think that the damage is due partly to the sea-salt, and partly to the acids contained either in the ashes or in the rain-water itself. Upon watering the tender tops of some plants with a saturated solution of the salt from Vesuvius itself, I noticed that they withered away after a few hours. But very often the rain alone which traverses the smoke of Vesuvius, or is produced by condensation from it, gives manifest acid reactions, and destroys the gra.s.s and the tops of the trees. The peasants believe that the rain is warm or of boiling water, from observing that the tender parts of the plants are, by its deposit, all burnt up. Vegetation is now recovering, but without flowers, and consequently without fruit.

V.

THE CRATERS AND THEIR FUMAROLES.

The greater part of the lava issued from the base of the great fissure in the cone which I have described; and although two other lava streams descended from the top of the mountain, neither proceeded from the crater, but from apertures near it. The great crater, divided in two as already described, opened wide on the morning of the 26th April, destroying the brim of the antecedent crater, and remaking it in another shape with ejected matter, except on the south-west side, where the brim was split. (See Plate 5.)

From this double crater, copious smoke, bombs and incandescent scoriae, with ashes and lapilli, issued with violence, and from the depths below came dreadful detonations and bellowings, producing great terror. And yet the lava poured out into the Atria del Cavallo without any noise, and not even a column of smoke marked its origin of issue--namely, from the fissure.

When the eruption was over, the sight of the vertical walls of these deep craters, of almost horizontal strata of scoriae and lithoidal ma.s.ses, with a fracture fresh, and as if they had never undergone the action of fire or of acid vapours, without recent scoriae and without fumaroles, was to me a marvellous spectacle. The fumaroles were almost all on the brims of the craters, with emanations of hydrochloric and sulphurous acid. In a few that were more removed from the brim, sulphuretted hydrogen was perceptible. In the sublimations, chloride of iron was most abundant, in combination with other chlorides, for example, of sodium, magnesium and calcium. This last chloride was frequent even among the sublimations of the fumaroles of the lavas, and it was the first time it was ever remarked, but I do not think it was the first time that it was ever produced: being in combination with chloride of iron, and very deliquescent, it did not attract attention from anyone. In a hollow fragment of scoriae I observed a yellowish substance, which looked like sulphur in a viscid state, and which boiled at a temperature of 120, and evolved hydrochloric acid. Having collected this substance and poured it into a gla.s.s phial, it quickly coagulated into an amorphous ma.s.s of the same colour; but before I reached the Observatory, I found that it had become liquid by deliquescence. It consisted of a mixture of the aforesaid chlorides, according to an a.n.a.lysis made by Professor Silvestro Zinno and myself.

In some fumaroles, where I perceived the smell of sulphuretted hydrogen, I found sublimed sulphur under the scoriae.

At the source of the lava stream that flowed towards the Camaldoli, on the seaward flank of Vesuvius, I observed large fumaroles of steam only, pure aqueous vapour.

There was no trace of carbonic acid in these fumaroles, but that fact does not imply that there was none at a later period, for, since the first investigations of Deville, it is known that carbonic acid is found under certain conditions on the very summit of Vesuvius.

VI.

THE ELECTRICITY OF THE SMOKE AND ASHES.

Our ancestors could judge that a great amount of electricity was occasionally evolved in the smoke, from their observation of the lightning flashes that darted through the Vesuvian pine tree; but they had no proper instruments for ascertaining whether this evolution of electricity was constant or accidental, or what laws regulated its manifestations. My _apparatus, with movable conductor_, by which comparative observations of electric meteorology can be made, and the errors arising from dispersion corrected, supplied me with an easy method of studying the electricity evolved during eruptions.

I must begin by describing the bifilar electrometer, in order to explain the apparatus which I have named as above, "_Apparechio a conduttore mobile_."

_A A_ (Plate VIa, Fig. 1) is a gla.s.s cylinder, the lower edge of which is ground, well varnished with gum lac, and let into a wooden base, B, furnished with three levelling screws. Through a sufficiently wide gla.s.s tube, _a a_, runs a copper rod covered with insulating mastic, having a little plate or cylindrical cavity of gilded bra.s.s at the top (Figs. 2 and 3), with two arms _d d_, _d' d_. In the plate a disc of aluminium, _m_, is suspended by means of two silk fibres, and to the disc a very fine aluminium wire is attached, _f f'_, bent a little at the ends, as are the arms, _d d_, _d' d_. The disc has about three millimetres less diameter than the plate. The diameter of the plate may vary within certain limits, but I have found it convenient to make it eighteen millimetres. The gla.s.s tube, _a a_ (Fig. 1), should descend below the base as much as it rises above it, that is three to four centimetres.

The length of the index is about one decimetre.

The upper ends of the two silk fibres, by which the disc and index are suspended, are attached to the top of the gla.s.s tube, _C_, by a contrivance which permits a change in the distance between the two points of suspension, and a screw, _p_, is provided to raise and lower the disc with the index. At _n_, at the lower part of the tube, _C_, there is a kind of torsion micrometer, arranged so as to bring the index to the zero of the scale engraved on the graduated ring, _B_, which is formed of a strip of good paper pasted on the rim of a gla.s.s disc. The index must be placed at the zero of the scale, and must be some distance from the ends of the arms of the plate with which it is parallel. The plate is about three millimetres deep.

Having levelled the instrument, so as to render the disc concentric with the plate, and placed the index at zero, it is obvious that if an electric charge through the wire, _h_, reach the plate with the arms, it will electrify the disc and index: the disc will have the opposite electricity, and the extremities of the index will take the same electricity as the arms, and consequently the index will describe an arc more or less great. The motion of the index is sufficiently slow to allow the eye conveniently to follow it. Having traversed the first arc, which I call the _impulsive_ one, the index returns, and, after only two oscillations, comes to rest at what I shall call the _definite_ arc.

When the electric charges are of very brief duration, the impulsive arcs are within certain limits proportional to the tensions, and the ratio between the impulsive and definite arcs is expressed by the following equation:

a( - a) / = tang. (1/2) a

In which is the impulsive arc and a the definite arc, showing that a comes out nearly equal to 1/2 . In dry weather all goes perfectly within the limits of proportion, and I can tell whether, during the time in which the index traversed the impulsive arc, there were any _dispersions_ and of what nature; for if the definite arc is not close to the limit of the impulsive arc, it is a sign of _dispersions_ having taken place during the motions of the index. Every degree less in the definite arc denotes two degrees of loss for the impulsive arc; but as the index employs double the time traversing the definite as it does the impulsive arc, we may consider the loss of one equal to the loss of the other.

In excessively damp weather the index gives no definite arc, and it is necessary to resort to artificial heat in order to dry the insulators.

The most simple means I know of is to hold the instrument over some hollow vessel, which, for the time, is converted into a stove by the introduction of a spirit lamp.

From Gauss's formula for the bifilar system of instruments of this cla.s.s, we learn that the maximum sensitiveness of such instruments is given when the length of the suspending fibres is greatest, and the distance between them is smallest, with the weight of the movable or rotating member a minimum; and these elements being the same, the sensitiveness of the instruments is invariable.

To some electrometers, in order to avoid errors of parallax, a small telescope, with a micrometer wire, has been added; but, with a little practice, we can read accurately without this refinement. In order to obtain comparative measurements, it is necessary to select some given unit of tension. I have observed that by making a galvanic pile of copper, zinc and distilled water, and insulating it well, each pole has a tension which remains the same for many days, if the conditions of temperature and the moisture of the surrounding atmosphere are not very different. With thirty pairs of this pile, each element having twenty-five square centimetres of surface, I have on the electrometer a definite arc of 15, with the temperature of the atmosphere at 20 C., and with the difference of 4 to 5 C. between the thermometers of the psychrometer of August's construction. The first observation was made twenty-four hours after mounting the pile. For unit of tension I took that which corresponded to a single pair, that is, the thirtieth part of the total tension. Other electrometers may be compared with one already properly adjusted, without always having recourse to the pile.

This done, let us see the arrangement of all the apparatus:

_H H_ (Plate VIIa, Fig. 1) is the ceiling of a well-situated lofty room, with an opening, _o o_, at the upper part.

_M M_, a bracket or table fastened against the wall, about a metre distant from the ceiling, _H H_.

_N N_, a wooden platform for the observer.

_A_, the bifilar electrometer.

_B_, Bohnenberger's electroscope.

_a a_, a movable conductor formed of a bra.s.s rod 15 to 18 millimetres in diameter, insulated below by means of a gla.s.s rod, well varnished with gum lac, having a suspending pulley, _c_, and a wooden guide-rod underneath it, _l_, within the guiding tube, _k_. At the upper part of this conductor, _a a_, there is a sliding roof, _b_, which can be adjusted so as to prevent rain entering at the opening, _o o_. The conductor terminates in a disc made of a sheet of thin bra.s.s, _d_, 24 centimetres in diameter. Upon this disc, or even in place of it, we may use metallic points.

As a support to the conductor at the upper part, I have made use of a triangular ring, _x_, drawn at its full size in Fig. 2. The conductor pa.s.ses between three springs, and the triangular ring is held in place by three silk cords, _m m m_. Their material should not be mixed with any cotton, and it may be advisable to saturate them with an alcoholic solution of gum lac.

_f f f_ is a hempen cord, which is used to raise and lower the conductor.