We learn by a communication from Hawaii to the American Journal of Science and Arts that a grand outburst occurred in February last, but ceased quite suddenly, to the disappointment of visitors who came expecting to see a volcanic display. As the vessel was steaming away, they saw in deep water, a mile off Kealakekua, the place where Captain Cook was killed, a remarkable heaving and bubbling, intermingled with jets of steam, and throwing up of pumice and light scoria. This commotion was still going on five weeks afterwards. It was occasioned by a subterranean lava-stream which, after rending the mountain slopes with deep fissures, found an outlet under the sea.
The Weather Review published by the United States Signal Service contains details of the wave which may be accepted as trustworthy. 'About 8.50 P.M. of May 9, heavy earthquake shocks were felt over the region between Arica and Mexillones (border of Peru and Bolivia). The oceanic wave which immediately followed was of great violence along the adjoining South American coast, and was felt also as far north as California, the rise at Anaheim being twelve feet in a few minutes. At Callao, Peru, the wave was felt at 11 P.M.; at San Francisco was perceptible at 6.18 A.M. May 10, with increase to a maximum of fourteen inches at 8.20. It reached the Sandwich Islands, eastern Hawaii, at Hilo, at 4 A.M.; and the great wave, thirty-six feet high, came in at 4.45. At Honolulu it was first felt at 4.45, and was followed by the great wave at five o'clock.'
In a subsequent communication it is stated that thirty-six hours after the inrush of the great wave at Hilo, the rising and falling still continued, 'the incoming and outflowing wave occupying about an hour, the latter leaving the channels nearly bare.'
Our American cousins are not disposed to accept their plague of locusts as an inevitable calamity, for the Entomological Commission appointed by the government at Washington have published two numbers of a Bulletin, with woodcuts, giving information on the natural history of the devouring insects and on the various methods proposed for their destruction. It is shewn that by systematic endeavours before the creatures get their wings they may be destroyed on a great scale, for then it is possible to drive them in enormous 'schools' or flocks as easily as sheep. Millions fall into long straight ditches dug as traps and there perish; millions more are crushed by rollers; hogs and poultry devour them greedily; and a number of ingenious machines stand ready to catch the winged locusts in the air or to capture them as they crawl. One of these machines produces a powerful upward blast which sucks up the crawlers from the ground, and drives them into a receptacle where they are smashed to a pulp. American ingenuity is roused by the swarming inroad, and it will be interesting to watch the struggle. Meanwhile the States adjacent to the Rocky Mountains are anxiously asking which is to conquer, man or locust?
Concerning the Colorado beetle, Mr Riley, State Entomologist for Missouri, reports that the eastward progress of the insect 'was at the average rate of eighty-eight miles a year, and that it has now invaded nearly a million and a half square miles, or more than one-third the area of the United States. It does not thrive where the thermometer reaches one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and hence it may never extend its range very far south of the territory now occupied; but its northern spread is not limited; and it may push to the northernmost limit of the potato-growing country.'
Special associations for special objects are a characteristic of the present century, so it seems quite natural that there should be a 'Society of Americanists,' whose object is to gather information about America. They meet once in two years; their next meeting is to be held next month at Luxemburg; and we learn from their programme that their inquiries are to apply to the times anterior to the discovery of America by Columbus. Thus the picture-writing of the Mexicans, their civil legislation under the Aztecs as compared with that of the Peruvians under the Incas; the inscriptions in the ancient cities of Central America, the ancient use of copper, the works of the mysterious mound-builders, the comparison of the Eskimo language with the languages of Southern America; traditions of the Deluge especially in Mexico; the discovery of Brazil, and other ethnographical and palæographical subjects. If this scheme be wisely and diligently followed out, there is reason to hope that some light will be thrown into the obscurity of early American history.
A description of the great river Amazons and of the vast region watered by its affluents, by Mr R. Reyes, is published in the Bulletin of the Société de Géographie, at Paris. He calls it the American Mediterranean, and shews that by itself and its feeders, the noble stream borders the territories of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. Ships of the largest class can navigate to a distance of three thousand miles from the sea, and ascend some of the tributaries from two to nine hundred miles, through a country rich and fertile almost beyond description. The forests produce four hundred different kinds of wood, mostly of excellent quality, as may be seen in the Museum at Rio Janeiro; and fruits, drugs, and minerals abound.
A tourist wishful to take a holiday in the tropics may now embark in the West Indies, cross to the mainland, steam up the Magdalena to the city of Purification in the Colombian State Tolima. Thence by a land-journey of three days he reaches the steamers on the affluents of the Amazons, and ends his voyage of four thousand miles on the great Brazilian river.