In Kingstown we were shown the elaborate process by which arrowroot is made into edible starch, the powdery product being critically graded by delicate shades of color. This corm, which makes inconspicuous fields of low growing pointed Canna leaves and small white flowers, is quite different from the cassava, or manioc, which I had known on my first visits to the West Indies. Arrowroot has been developed by the agricultural experiment stations of the British, who for many years searched for a new commercial product. The St. Vincent arrowroot is now a major industry which has spread to the other islands and is cultivated by small planters.
In the volcano islands I interviewed government people to call attention to the crisis in Montserrat, using it as an illustration of the need at the numerous vents for the development of observatory methods, particularly in geology, chemistry, oceanography, and seismology, including measurements of ground surface movements and tilt. I had recommended this for Martinique and St. Vincent in 1902; and Perret, with some support by the French government, had gone to live in St. Pierre and make a museum, stimulated by the Pelée outbreak of 1929. So far as geophysics is concerned, the governments of St. Vincent and Jamaica have gone to sleep since the volcano disaster of 1902 and the earthquake building reforms of 1907. It is discouraging to a scientist to know that the science of economic geophysics and geography in such a magnificent field as the West Indian volcanoes has to be awakened by such disasters as were now occurring in Montserrat, with no forecasting at all. The whole Montserrat episode was like our unforeseen Hualalai earthquakes of 1929, and in both places my shock recorder was called in to help.
We went on to Barbados, a flat non-seismic land, where in 1902 I had interviewed the Roraima victims. We returned by way of St. Lucia, where we drove to the solfatara, which as usual is in a valley with sulfur and hot springs, near sea level, and not in a crater.
We returned to Montserrat, where the earthquakes and bad gases had died down after 1936. The investigations of the Commission (Lenox-Conyngham made his visit after I left), came to publication in Powell and MacGregor’s reports on the seismic analysis and the geology. I sent in a report with photographs and charts on the whole chain of volcanoes, in relation to the Montserrat crisis, by comparison with other volcanoes. Lenox-Conyngham wrote an article for Nature. MacGregor later published a critical analysis of modern data on the probabilities of eruption in all of the West Indian volcanoes. Perret published a large monograph on Montserrat, illustrated with his beautiful photographs.
We passed Martinique by sea, and I saw the huge pile of lava the 1929 eruption had added, to make an entirely new summit to Mount Pelée. Vegetation and habitation had reappeared at St. Pierre, but the mountain was bare.
We returned to Hawaii by way of Bermuda, Boston, and Washington, where the temperature was hotter than we had felt in the tropics. Reviewing the journey, I was encouraged to perceive that geology had changed a great deal since the struggle that Hovey and I, after our experience at Mount Pelée, had had to make geological societies realize that changes in the field must be constantly measured. The real obstacles to getting field measurements permanently manned as pure science are lack of money and the fashions of education. Perret and I have been two isolated enthusiasts crying in the wilderness.
Any young scientist with photographic skill who will give his life to living with and reporting upon a single volcano group can make a great contribution to science. He must have suitable financial backers and a publication agency and instruments not dependent upon frequent eruptions. What volcano science needs most is permanent dwellers, using all the resources of sensitive geophysics and chemistry and dwelling close to craters or solfataras. Such lands as the Taupo District of New Zealand are ideal, but not when observed at a distance. Wairaki is now under investigation for commercial power. Hilo is being critically examined for a lava diversion scheme. But these projects are not what I mean, and are not pure science. The personal devotion of a lifetime, as in the cases of Pasteur or Schweitzer, is what produces the emergent evolution of true science.
I have called this chapter Prophecy and Hope because of six fruitful prognostications and hope for the future of volcanology. Of the prognostications, one was the threat to Hilo which came true in 1934. Two, the forecast to the effect that bombing would stop a lava flow came true. Three, the belief that a volcano observatory would be productive of instruments came true. Four, the prediction of danger to Hilo produced definite defensive plans by U.S. Engineers. Five, predictions of time and place of Mauna Loa outbreaks, seismically and historically proved practical. Six, the prediction of Kilauea sinking lava, based on sinking at Mauna Loa, had repeatedly been fulfilled.
When my government service as Volcanologist ended in 1940 and R. H. Finch had been appointed my successor, substantial recognition of the Observatory had come from Washington, New Zealand, and Great Britain. Great help had come from Presidents Arthur L. Dean and David L. Crawford of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, and new assistance came from President Gregg M. Sinclair. This was to lead to my employment by the University as Research Associate in 1940. Thus I was to continue, during the next decade, the publishing of Volcano Observatory results.
Over and over again Hawaiian volcanology demonstrated the need of advertisement, occasionally reaching such men as Everett Morss, M.I.T. trustee in Boston; Lorin Thurston, business leader in Honolulu; Henderson, Washington financier, for our borings; and Cramton, leader of Congress. The Volcano Research Association in Honolulu is a devoted group of businessmen keeping up a small fund of $6,000 per annum, trivial compared to the big laboratories of commerce and astronomy. A pure science of volcanology, with world-wide laboratories is now needed to catch the eye and ear of imaginative men of business. Friedlaender in Naples, Perret on Mount Pelée, and Omori in Tokyo almost created enough imaginative stimulus to real exploration of volcanoes and of the inner earth. They were battered down by natural catastrophe and by wars.