Littell's Living Age/Volume 173/Issue 2233/A Japanese Volcano

- The active volcano, Asamayama, appears to be attracting particular attention just now in Japan, probably because it is the loftiest mountain in the country which is in a constant state of activity, and also because it is the nearest to the capital, and is situated in a district long famous for its health resorts. A few weeks since we referred to an anonymous account of the crater, published in the Japan Weekly Mail, but a much more careful sketch of it is given by the Japan correspondent of the Times in a letter published recently in that journal. The roar of the volcano, on approaching the edge of the crater, he describes as not unlike the noise produced by the passage of a train across a bridge under which one is standing. There was no shaking, however, but loud hissing and bubbling constantly proceeded from numberless vapor-jets in the inner face of the crater-wall, from its rim downwards. The crater is a rough oval in shape, but the estimates of its size are most conflicting. The Japanese give the circumference as four miles, but this is simply a wild guess. A German explorer set down the diameter at eleven hundred yards, and an English mathematical professor put it at only two hundred yards, "divergencies that will illustrate the mental confusion to which some men are liable when in the presence of dread natural phenomena." The writer himself estimated the circumference at one thousand and fifty-six yards, by walking round the windward half of it — it was impossible to pass through the vapors on the lee side — which was accomplished in six minutes, at the rate of about three miles an hour. On the very interesting question of the depth of the crater — that is, the depth from the mouth to the surface of the molten matter — opinions vary almost as hopelessly as on the size. No doubt the "vast clouds of the most pungent sulphurous steam," which are described as rising swiftly out of the caldron, render exact observation difficult. The Times correspondent speaks of catching glimpses of the crater-wall at depths which a very moderate estimate would place at three hundred feet. But the gradual convergence of the cavity apparent at this depth forbids the acceptance of the enormous profundity for which some visitors have contended, and suggests that the depth can hardly much exceed five hundred feet. After a weird description of the appearance presented to the spectator by the volcano at work, the writer concludes by remarking that the present crater is apparently the youngest and innermost of three. Further down on the south-west side are to be seen, along with numerous fissures of unfathomable depth, remains which point to the existence of two former craters, concentric and of large dimensions, and separated from one another by a considerable interval. Possibly the existing cone was formed by the great eruption of 1783.