The Last Volcano Read online

  He began with the volcanoes of southern Italy—Vesuvius, Etna and Stromboli. He would walk into a field of steam and smoke and insert one end of a long glass tube into a hot crack. When he thought the tube had filled with gas, he would remove the tube and put rubber stoppers at each end of the tube. He would then take the tube to a laboratory for analysis. He repeated this at the volcano Hekla in Iceland, on the volcanic islands of Tenerife and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean and Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. From there, he continued around the world to volcanoes in Indonesia, Japan and South America. His last stop was the Hawaiian Islands.

  His travels took eight years. He reached Kilauea in August 1910. Here, he realized, was the best opportunity to collect volcanic gases because one could stand right at the edge of a crater that held molten lava. And so he took considerable time to devise a new and more elaborate sampling method and took considerable care in collecting his samples.

  He constructed a 150-foot-long train of glass tubes connected by rubber joints. He dangled the train of tubes over the crater’s edge. At the upper end he attached a small pump that he cranked to draw gases into the tubes. After several minutes of cranking, satisfied that enough gas had been drawn from the crater, he retrieved the train of tubes and analyzed the contents. He repeated the experiment at several places around the crater.

  For every gas sample he retrieved at Kilauea and at the other volcanoes the result was the same: In none of the tubes was there any sign of condensed water vapor, as Fouqué had seen in his leather bags. Instead, Brun detected a wide variety of gases, mainly, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Brun made another discovery that he thought was important: There was always a thin layer of salts lining the inside of the tubes. But there was never any water.

  In June 1911 Brun published a book, Recherches sur l’exhalaison volcanique, in which he detailed his work and his conclusions. He suggested the beads of water Fouqué had collected had come from the atmosphere, not the volcano itself. He also suggested the presence of salts and sulfur was the key to understanding volcanoes and supported the old idea, popular in the 18th century, that volcanic eruptions were powered by chemical explosions—and not the expansion of gases, as is known today.

  One reviewer of the book decided that Brun should now “be ranked as one of the most remarkable of contemporary workers in science.” His work had changed everything scientists thought they knew about volcanoes. The review ended with the comment: “Those interested in volcanoes should consult the book for themselves. It is to be devoutly hoped that before long its results will be critically tested in the field. Considering the peculiar facilities offered by Kilauea it is perhaps not too much to expect American scientists will soon take up the challenge.”

  Shepherd and Day had decided to do exactly that.

  They arrived in Hilo on the morning of May 8, 1912. They were greeted by Thurston who took them to a luncheon held in their honor attended by several of Hilo’s leading citizens. After eating and rising to say a few words in support of Jaggar and his plan to start a volcano observatory at Kilauea, Shepherd and Day boarded a special train—Thurston had held up its departure until the luncheon was finished—and headed for the volcano.

  At the summit they introduced themselves to Frank Dodge, whom Jaggar had already directed to assist them in their efforts. The trio planned to descend into Halema’uma’u and collect gases directly from one of the numerous vents where lava was frothing and bursting up out of the ground. But Dodge was not yet familiar enough to lead the fieldwork, and so he hired volcano guide Alexander Lancaster to lead them into the crater.

  Lancaster’s background is difficult to trace. When asked by volcano visitors what was his origin, he gave a variety of answers. The more common ones were that he was Hawaiian or Negro or Cherokee Indian. He told his grandchildren that he was a lost prince from India. What little is actually known about him comes from a few documents.

  Alexander Peter Lancaster was born on January 21, 1861, in Virginia. Given his dark complexion and the timing and the place of his birth, he was almost certainly born a slave. At age ten he had left the south and was attending public school in Oakland, California, probably the extent of his education. He was barely five feet high, weighed less than a hundred pounds, had perfect vision in both eyes and could hear slightly better in his right ear than in the left one.

  On Christmas Day 1880 a small cargo ship, the Eureka, arrived in Honolulu from San Francisco. In addition to the thousands of sacks of flour and grain and the dozens of chickens and ducks on board, there were also thirteen passengers. One gave his name as “A. Lancaster.” He is possibly the man who would later become the volcano guide.

  The first mention of Lancaster at Kilauea is in an entry in the Volcano House Register. On August 21, 1888, the Reverend Charles M. Hyde who was visiting from Honolulu wrote: “At 3:30 P.M. started with Aleck Lancaster as guide.” There are several other entries about him, all laudatory. One tells how he was kneading a lump of molten lava that he had just retrieved with a long wooden stick from the lava lake when a mass of lava seemed to surge toward him. He had his back to the lake. Those nearby started to scream. He turned and looked over his shoulder, determined the oncoming wave presented no danger, then calmly resumed his work. He was “the trusty volcano guide” and “a great favorite.” And during the forty years he worked as a guide, he probably saw more volcanic activity than anyone in history.

  On the day of the descent into Halema’uma’u, Dodge determined the lava level was 219 feet below the crater rim. The upper half of the crater wall was then nearly vertical with rocky overhangs. The lower half was a steep pile of loose rocks.

  Lancaster began the descent by wedging a log into a crack near the crater’s edge. He tied one end of a steel cable to the log and the other end to a long rope ladder. He then threw the rope ladder over the edge.

  As he descended, Lancaster knocked away loose rocks with a hammer, stopping, when necessary, to untangle the ladder as he went. When he reached the bottom rung, he called for a second rope ladder—this one was rolled up—which Dodge lowered to him on a rope. Lancaster tied one end of the second ladder to the bottom of the first, tossed the second one down, and continued his descent. When he reached the top of the loose rock, he climbed back up to the rim.

  He threw a long iron pipe and a wooden walking stick into the crater. Then Lancaster descended again, this time carrying a knapsack filled with twenty half-liter glass tubes. He also carried a hand-cranked suction pump made of iron. When he reached the bottom of the second ladder and was again standing atop the pile of loose rocks, he signaled for the next man to come down.

  Shepherd was next. He also carried a knapsack. His was filled with notebooks and a camera. Then Arthur Day descended. He knew he would be unsteady, and so an Alpine belt was tied around his waist and a safety rope attached to the belt. Then, as Day descended, Dodge, still on the rim, held the free end of the safety rope while Shepherd guided him down. As soon as Day reached Shepherd and Lancaster, Dodge descended, also with a knapsack.

  The four men now stood halfway down and inside the crater. Fumes were rising all around them. There was not yet any terrific heat, but breathing was difficult. Dodge reached into his knapsack and pulled out breathing equipment for each man: a rubber nose mask in which a water-soaked sponge could be held. Dodge sprinkled water from his canteen onto each sponge. He then handed a mask and sponge to each man, instructing him that, as the sponge absorbed gases, if the stench of noxious ones became too great, he was to pull out the sponge, squeeze it dry, then sprinkle more water and reapply the mask.

  When everyone was ready, they continued their descent, each man crawling slowly backwards down the steep slope of loose rocks and choosing his own path, careful not to send a rock on a man below him. After an hour, all four were standing on the crater floor. The fumes were so thick that day that they could not see the crater rim.

  Lancaster led the way
, using the wooden walking stick to tamp out a safe path, occasionally, striding over glowing red cracks. The others followed.

  He led them close to a small cone where small pieces of molten lava were being flung a few feet into the air. Once there, Shepherd gathered and assembled the equipment, attaching the suction pump to one end of the iron pipe. He attached an iron elbow joint to the other end. Then, with great difficulty, the four men swung the pipe out and maneuvered it so that the open end of the elbow joint slid into the top of the bursting lava cone. Shepherd then took one of the glass tubes and connected it to the exhaust end the pump. When all was ready, Lancaster crouched down and cranked the pump, pulling volcanic gases straight from the cone and through the pipe and the pump and into the glass tube. The others gathered around and stared at the tube.

  Within minutes, a clear liquid appeared. Lancaster continued to crank. After ten minutes, a puddle of the liquid had accumulated inside the tube. A new tube replaced the one already used. Another sample of the clear liquid was obtained. Then a third tube was used and a fourth until all twenty tubes had been attached.

  Of the twenty tubes, eight remained intact and without cracks as the pumping continued and after the four men had made it out of the crater. And all eight gave the same result: The clear liquid was water. This experiment, with improved equipment—Day and Shepherd would later use vacuum glass tubes and, instead of using a long iron pipe, would hold tubes directly over bursting lava cones—would be repeated at Kilauea and at other volcanoes, setting the standard for years to come concerning the collection of gases at volcanoes. The result has also been the same at every volcano: By far, the main component of gases emitted by volcanoes is water vapor followed by smaller, though significant, amounts of carbon dioxide and sulfur components and a very small amount of hydrogen.

  After five hours on the crater floor, the four men made the return climb. The next day, on the front page of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Thurston heralded the experiment as “a hazardous undertaking” made by “determined men.” Two days later, the crater floor dropped suddenly; some sections of it fell more than twenty feet. The place where the four men had stood was now a dark abyss filled with heavy smoke.

  In 1912 the Hawaiian Islands were in the midst of their first boom in tourism. Full-page advertisements in national magazines and newspapers lured tourists with the promise of picture-perfect sandy beaches lined with coconut palms and an erupting volcano. A musical play, Bird of Paradise, opened on January 8 at the Daly Theater on Broadway in New York. The playwright was Richard Tully who had spent the summer of 1910 at the Volcano House where he had written the play. The play’s popularity—the final scene was the sacrifice a young native woman to the volcano god Pele—increased interest in the islands as a tourist destination. In 1912 more than ten thousand people visited the Hawaiian Islands. And almost all of them came to Kilauea.

  Thurston knew that to continue the appeal of Kilauea it was important to have a volcano observatory, an attraction the visitors would enjoy. And so, though Jaggar had been back in Boston for only one month, Thurston wrote to him asking when he might return.

  Jaggar wrote back saying that he had met with Maclaurin and that they had discussed “whether it will be wise for me to take charge of the Kilauea station for a term of years.” Maclaurin said no. There was administrative work for Jaggar to do and students to teach and whose work needed to be supervised. Also there was the issue of money. Maclaurin was adamant: No more money from the Whitney fund could be used in Hawaii.

  Thurston, who, as a businessman, was used to negotiations, made an offer. He would finance all volcano work, except Jaggar’s salary, which would be paid by MIT. Furthermore, MIT would have “scientific” control of the volcano observatory, the staff at Bishop Museum in Honolulu would have “local” control and Thurston would retain “administrative” control. And the new institution would be known as “Bishop Museum’s Center for Volcanology.”

  Surprisingly, Maclaurin did not dismiss the offer out-of-hand. A month of negotiations followed, a flurry of letters, memos and cablegrams exchanged among Thurston, Maclaurin and Jaggar. Finally, Thurston conceded all points. He would supply all the money, which included paying Jaggar’s salary, for a period of five years, some of the money to come from subscriptions from members of the Hawaiian Volcano Research Association. Bishop Museum was eliminated.† MIT would have “full” control of the observatory. And Jaggar would be given a five-year leave-of-absence to start the observatory and be its first director. The new institution would be known as “The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.” And, finally, in recognition of her financial contributions to MIT, the concrete cellar under the observatory building where scientific instruments would be housed would be named for Anne Whitney and would be known as “the Whitney vault.”

  On the eve of his departure from Boston—Helen and the children would come to Kilauea later—Jaggar was honored at a farewell dinner given by his MIT colleagues, including Maclaurin. After the last dinner course was finished and cigars had been passed around, the conversation turned to the risk of giving up a secure job in Boston. It then proceeded to the terror of sailing distant oceans and of living in foreign countries. And, finally, the men talked of the danger of volcanoes and of exposing their families to the awfulness of leprosy and other diseases common in the tropics. After the last topic was discussed, Jaggar, hoping to lighten the mood, rose and addressed his colleagues who he would soon leave. Yes, he acknowledged, such challenges exist and he would confront each one if it turned up, but, for now, finally sparking a jovial tone, “I ain’t dead yet!”

  On his way to the Hawaiian Islands, Jaggar stopped at the University of California in Berkeley to collect the man who would be his assistant, Harry Oscar Wood. Wood was a sour-faced man who often complained of catarrhal colds and other recurring ailments. But he was a capable man and one of the few, in this era, who knew anything about science of earthquakes.

  Wood had been one of Jaggar’s students at Harvard. After graduation, Wood was hired as an instructor in geology at the University of California where he was put in charge of teaching a laboratory class in mineralogy. In the hours immediately after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which had occurred in the early morning, Wood went out and began compiling information for a map that would show the intensity of damage produced by the earthquake. A month later, he was placed in charge of two seismographs owned by the University. Both were Bosch-Omori seismographs.

  But, as the years passed after the earthquake, Wood was not happy at the university. He felt overworked and underpaid. The latter was certainly true. In the eight years he had worked at the university, he had never been promoted or received a raise in pay. And so, when Jaggar asked him about working at Kilauea, he was eager to leave.

  Jaggar and Wood arrived at the volcano on June 13. On the first day of the next month, July 1, 1912, Thurston started to pay their salaries and other bills accumulated by the volcano work. That day is the official starting date of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

  Jaggar quickly established a daily routine. Work began at 8 A.M. with a trip for either him or Wood or both to Halema’uma’u where the lake level was measured and important changes since the previous day were noted. Then back to the observatory building where measurements of air temperature and humidity were measured and wind speed and direction and cloud conditions were noted. At around midday, a careful measurement was made using a solar transit to determine the exact moment of local noon. From that determination, the observatory’s two pendulum clocks were reset. Finally, a wide-angle photograph was taken from the observatory of the summit region of Kilauea and the distant profile of Mauna Loa.

  In the afternoon, Wood worked on setting up and adjusting seismographs in the Whitney Vault. Jaggar answered correspondence and met with visitors, explaining the purpose of the observatory. During the first few months after the observatory was established, he took a few trips, each one l
asting a few days, to familiarize himself with the location of recent lava flows of both Kilauea and Mauna Loa.

  The question soon arose as to the future of Frank Dodge. In fact, Jaggar had made plans for him. He had arranged for Dodge to enter MIT in the fall and prepare himself to be a volcano observer. “The idea wasn’t so screwy if placed before the right boy,” Dodge would later write. But it was not an idea that “heated” him up. Instead, he “just got lukewarm. Just warm enough to say yes.”

  His father gave him $400 for the trip to Boston. Before he left he made a list of women’s addresses in San Francisco he copied from the Volcano House registry.

  Arriving in San Francisco, he spent two weeks in the city playing poker, going to bars and dating women. One morning, after waking up from a stupor, he found that he had only $35 left in his pocket. “There went any chance of college,” he remembered of the moment. Unwilling to face his father, he drifted around, finding work wherever he could. He worked at land surveying, then as a boatman on the Colorado River. In old age, he settled down and maintained the stream gauge at Lee’s Ferry at the upper end of the Grand Canyon. He never did return to volcanoes.

  To take care of camping equipment and to be a field assistant, Jaggar hired Alexander Lancaster. His pay was $25 a month. Lancaster had a tendency to drink, and so Jaggar paid him small amounts through a month until it totaled $15. On the last day of the month, his wife, Makaweo, came to the observatory and Jaggar paid her the balance.

  A third person was hired the first year the observatory existed. She was Emily Farley. In view of what soon happened, it is important to understand who she was.

  Farley had sailed on the same ship that had brought Jaggar and Wood to the islands in June 1912. In fact, Jaggar and Farley had met on the first day at sea, he writing in a notebook how he could contact her again once they had reached the islands.