Dr. Jaggar spent the last years of his life writing the history of his sixty years of intensive, rugged, and hazardous scientific achievements. During many of these years, and up to the completion of his life’s history, it has been well stated that one of his most valuable co-workers was his wife, Isabel, who shared with him the disappointments, the joys of discovery, and much of the physical work. It is the privilege of the officers, directors and members of the Hawaiian Volcano Research Association to present in book form this story of Dr. Jaggar’s life.

CONTENTS

CHAPTERPAGE
I.Young Scientist[3]
II.Imitating Ripplemarks[32]
III.Expedition Decade[55]
IV.Living with Volcanoes[85]
V.Expansion Decade[114]
VI.Prophecy and Hope[151]
VII.Envoi[177]

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE
Thomas A. Jaggar[Frontis]
1.Experimental Geology Laboratory, Harvard University, 1900[40]
2.Fountain at edge of lava lake, May 17, 1917[41]
3.Explosion cloud rising from Halemaumau, May 13, 1924[56]
4.Crag in lava lake, January 23, 1918[57]
5.Scientists of Technical Expedition to Aleutians, 1907[72]
6.Captain George Seeley of the Lydia, 1907[73]
7.Volcano House from Observatory, 1913[88]
8.Island in Halemaumau lava lake, 1911[88]
9.Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, 1912[89]
10.Jaggar in seismograph vault beneath Observatory, 1916[89]
11.Lava lake, showing bench, March 30, 1917[92]
12.Halemaumau, showing lava lake and crags, December 8, 1916[92]
13.Jaggar holding pipe for sounding lava lake, 1917[93]
14.River of Alika flow, Mauna Loa, October 6, 1917[100]
15.Lava streaming into a sinkhole in Halemaumau lava lake, July 7, 1917[100]
16.Sakurajima Volcano, Japan, 1914[101]
17.Fountain in lava lake, March 19, 1921[101]
18.Isabel and Tom Jaggar in woods on Kilauea Volcano, 1923[120]
19.Lava lake, fountains, and crags, March 20, 1921[121]
20.Footprints in ash west of Mauna Iki[121]
21.The Honukai on Alaska beach, 1928[136]
22.The Ohiki, first amphibian truck, 1928[136]
23.Lava flow entering village of Hoopuloa, 1926[137]
24.Lava flow of 1926 Mauna Loa eruption approaching Hoopuloa[137]
25.Jaggar in office of Observatory in “Tin House,” 1937[152]
26.Bomb bursting on lava flow, December 27, 1935[153]
27.Fountain in Halemaumau lava lake, May 23, 1917[168]
28.Rare dome fountain, Kilauea Crater, March 20, 1921[169]
29.Lava stream near rim of Halemaumau, February 9, 1921[169]
CHARTS
Fluctuations of Halemaumau[113]
Diagram of hypothetical globe section[179]

PREFACE

This, my latest book, is another experiment. After sixty years of volcanoes I have learned reversal of preconceived notions. Gradually I have learned a totally different approach.

Shaler of Harvard was my inspirer, worker in the wonders of swamp and ice and sea beaches. He set me to work and turned me loose; among books and storm waves and men; especially among men, young men, ever reaping something new. When I chose volcanoes for my field Shaler said, “You have certainly selected the hardest.” It was a missionary field, for in it people were being killed. But the products of internal earth fluids, lava sea bottom, and vast Canadian ancient meltings, seemed to promise real natural history. Volcanoes squirt up the very ancient stuff of the solar system. Therein, I knew, must be something for future discovery. The investigation of it was a clear field, if action was the goal.

My field education in geology was by Hague, the friend of Archibald Geikie. By Emmons, skilled in ore deposits, and like Hague, trained by Clarence King. By Bailey Willis, son of a poet, a superlative draftsman and field man, and a brilliant experimenter. I went into the American West with these men.

But this story of a volcano experimenter’s life would have reached nowhere without Frank Alvord Perret, whom I first met on the slope of Vesuvius in 1906. I knew at once that he was the world’s greatest volcanologist. His skill was taking pictures. Mine was making experiments. We agreed that these two skills in action would accomplish what theories never could approach.