The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 6, 1899, Page 29

THE SUNDAY CALT Start] BY MYSTERIOUS WAYS NATIVE HAWANIANS PREDICT VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. inELégend of Kuoomauna and the Guard of the Mountains, with shimoto the g for s the w. over wh have raged it h dres sternly him out f scat- est and and bloom planta- ich the eed- s of an 1 in his mplacable as inder 1 himself esty report germ cultures, Hashimoto He attention was e e e Yy KUOOMAUNA \\j THEGUARD OF THE MOUNTAINS The Hiding - Place of Household God of Dead King Kalakaua tain tops, and there, in silence and lofty solitude, nurse the hope of ultimate vengeance. But one day a strange and sorrow- ful event occurre Pele, after mak- ing one of these unsuccessful battle: expeditions to_ the e of Aku manu's gdom, returned home more than usually downc nd after a the perfod of deepest mourning bec mother of a son in whom wer bined the natures of both her the sea god. A being who was the em- bodiment of the mighty possibilities in the way of destruction pc da by both fire and water, and whose very existence sprung from violence and wickedness, could not gain the - the flery such a mother hle ruler of tlon of even mighty but u floods. From the moment of his birth Pele hated her son with the strength of her u le and as soon as might she him rth nd. turning him to stone by nagic pow- er, condemned him t emain forever a ntinel at the loors of her stronghold, and the sacred pool W channels, is kept water heated by subterranea 23 This is the of XKuoo- . most faith- ved his mother's com- r after year, and cen- stern mauna, and, i fully has he mand for y tury after century, he has stoo and immovable where she imperiously stationed him and bade him s until either she or his hated father gained the decis! for which the are both s s zgling. Silent as he is, however, and hzrsh as has been fierce Pele's discipline, he has found a way to in some small de- gree reven~: himself upon her by be- traying to those who have eyes to see and minds to read his secret messages, some of the secrets which she tries to hide within the fi inderground laby- rinths over which she holds undisputed sWa3 There are many natives, both kahu- nas and common people, who, by cer- tain signs known in their entirety only to themselves, can infallibly foretell when an eruption is about to take place from any part of the mountains about which they make their homes. One of the principal signs on which they de- pend, and the only one of which they will speak to a foreigner, is the peculiar rise in temperature which, when an outbreak is impending, is observed to take place in various water-filled fis- sures along the co: and up on the des- olate mountain s From Wai-o-Akua, the Bath of the Gods, which lies in the Puna district of Hawali at the foot of a lava precipice that is covered with strange and unac- countable figures and characters resem- bling Aztec hieroglyphics, to the pool over which Kuoomauna holds especial sovereignty, they all tell—through the fact that their ordinarily tepid waters become without apparent cause, raised almost tc boiling heat—the story of coming fire-floods. So it is that Kuoomauna manages through underground channels to warn the natives of approaching danger; and so it is that, chained to one spot though he be by cruel Pele's imperial decree, he yet to this extent has both the courage and the power to defy her. is that every to show the time would have made The portrait is by a ¥V and is that of his wife, years ago, when she w after the portrait was wife died, 50 of the and to do so by year he as to ma thus keep m annive , the artist lo io and changes the 1 trait, adding what the difference changes picture is that of an old e hair turned g o His firs Bacteria of shapes app did not at tt vered that for the purpose o throw it away, attracted to a ed colony of baoteria k tions. REMARKABLY STRANGE == P fl— s 1 15 =l that led him to ma work v tion of a small port spread on a slide and the microscope the pl Il sizes.and the strangest ed by time occur to the experi- menter that it was all the same kind of bacteria killed while in different posi- The progress of the experiment led The most powerful mlcroscope failed to in this rod. It was d as the stinger nination. an inspec- n of the culture ained. Under L surprise, to the examination of the culture w still alive. In this condition the terla exhibited greater the bacillus of bhold, scrved that the same ge I of changing into a numt thousands, but it shapes. After many days of work Hashimoto came to the conclusion that when in a quiescent state the new microbe was nothing more than a small motile rod. nearly round and somewhat corrugated on the sides. Then began a disple be likened to the aurc appeared to be a numbe plump cocci hanging together, and then they suddenly shot out in ail directions, forming chains and stars and even get- ting into a semblance to a mushroom. In the course of its activity the bac- terflum had a great resemblance to many of the geometrical forms of crys- ooth and pol But on being disturbed it at cnce acted in the strz st manner and had g appearance of vapor than of late er of different substance, Its first movement appeared to be a sort of contraction from the two ends. It became a very dark red in color and then shaded off into a soft, watery- looking mass, At this time it was AND INSTANTANEOUS CHANGES IN FORM OF THE NEW MICROBE, ssumed what is known as form. It appeared to be of plates grouped together Some of these contalnec while others as many as sixteen. Apparently they were all indi- vidual cells, but In the quiescent state it hardly seemed possible that there could be more than one cell, It is this aspect of the microbe that will be the most interesting to sclentists. only eight,