passed, and from there onward we had to rely on just what we had carried with us. The trail was getting steeper now, and to make matters worse, very much rougher; nothing but bare lava, with little or no earth underneath.

Stopping again for one of our breathing-spells, we heard, through the forest above, voices of people approaching. In a few moments Professor Jaggar and the manager of the Kuhuku Ranch, with a party of cowboys, hove in sight, and told us they had been right up to the flow itself, had followed it along for some time and a lot of other things that made us hurry on and resume our climb. A light rain had now started, and we hoped that it did not presage a mountain fog. We thought that it must be raining quite hard farther up the mountain, for we heard what at first we believed was thunder, a low rumbling sound. As we approached, the sound grew louder and louder, and we soon realized that it was not thunder, but the noise made by the object of our search, the river of molten rock forcing its way down the mountainside. Higher and higher we climbed, until at last, by the clearness of the sound, we knew our goal was not far off. The noise now was not a steady rumble like thunder, but more a mingling of many sounds, a sort of grinding, tinkling, hissing, all combined.

As yet we had seen nothing of the flow itself, on account of the heavy forest which surrounded us. Here lehua had given place to mighty koas (Hawaiian mahogany): koas one hundred and fifty feet high, with wide-spreading branches and trunks that it would take three men with arms outstretched to girdle. Continuing on our way, we passed through a clearing where a forest fire in times gone by had swept bare the mountainside, leaving only a few dead trunks, looking like wraiths in the misty rain. Then, immediately before

us, we came upon a sharp rise or ridge made by some prehistoric flow; and as the noise now seemed so near, we decided to dismount, go up the ridge, and from its height see if we could not actually get a glimpse of the flow. This we did, and, to our great delight, way up the mountain in the distance an occasional red line of fire could be seen. We had reached our goal.

I cannot well describe the feeling that came over me at that first sighta great deal of thankfulness, combined with a mixture of dread and awe. The flow was coming our way, but we could not see it distinctly, so decided to get back to the horses, make a détour, and catch it higher up. This done, our next stop brought us to the flow. Oh, that sight! Never shall I forget it. A river of molten rock flowing majestically by, not five hundred yards off. Up the river about a thousand yards was a cascade, a true cascade with red-hot lava running and dashing over its front, while downstream it was running on top of an old 'a-a' flow, called Pele-OIki. A hundred yards away, and high above us, was a new flow which had apparently stopped moving; but in its cracks and holes fiery gleams still shone out. Human nature is surely an elastic element. I had at first a feeling of awe and respect; then in a little while, a feeling of confidence; until, later on, when we got within ten or fifteen feet of the moving mass, there came upon me a sense of perfect enjoyment, as if the whole affair had been planned just for my benefit.

The moving flow was about four hundred yards off, so out we started for it, over the old lava bed, passing the head of the now stationary part of the flow. Those who have never walked over an 'a-a' surface have no idea what hard work it is, with millions of sharp, jagged lumps of rock under your feet, none firmly seated. You cannot make

fast time over it. I had been told that these stationary fronts were dangerous, as one could never tell when the forward movement had entirely ceased, or when a new start might be made. Flows, apparently stationary, have taken a sudden spurt due to accumulated pressure, and for a time have moved very rapidly; so you may believe I kept a weather eye open on that stationary flow, lest it decide to start up again. The moving head at this time was traveling at the rate of about fifteen feet a minute, and was a wall or bank about ten feet high.

The head of an 'a-a' flow moves, not as a solid stream, but rather by a continuous falling or breaking down of the front. The walls are constantly breaking, and the top parts falling down. The effect is more that of an avalanche than anything I know; a tremendous force from behind is shoving and pushing the crumbling wall in the front. Great boulders, some the size of a small house, sailed by until they reached the brink, when over they would go, scattering everything before them. Luckily for us, a stiff breeze was blowing and we were well to windward, so that we did not have the disagreeable effect of the fumes and gases to contend with, and it also allowed us to get very close, as the heat was blown back. Now and then an explosion would rupture the mass, and a scattering of molten rock would follow, while in the meantime that sound, peculiar only to an ‘a-a' flow, went on continuously. Imagine millions of pieces of glass breaking, crashing, and clinking, and you get a fair idea of the weird sound. It was surely an awe-inspiring sight: tons and tons of molten and red-hot rock, rushing and crashing on, with a force no man-made barrier could withstand.

By now, the front wall or head had passed considerably below us, and we were left standing on the edge; so we

decided to retrace our steps and make for a point lower down, to watch the head pass by again. A détour of seven or eight hundred yards, and we had again caught up with 'our' flow. Another stop to watch the tremendous force pass on, and again another ride downward to watch the same thing. Fascinating is not the word for it. The ever-changing surface of the molten mass, the roar and crashing, gave surfeit to the emotions. Here, at the fourth stopping-place, the flow suddenly started to spurt, and as we could see the end of the Pele-O-Iki flow, with the forest below it, we decided to make for a vantage-point still farther down. There we knew we would see the sight of our lives a molten river tearing and forcing its way through the giant koas.

As we had had nothing to eat since early morning, we felt that supper would be appreciated, especially as our table was sure to be brightly lighted. Tying our horses at a safe distance, we undid our bundles and moved up on foot to where we judged the flow would strike the forest. At the foot of the old flow was a deep ravine, one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards across, and it was on the near bank of this ravine, among the trees, that we spread our feast. Scarcely had we begun our meal, when the head came crashing down. As if it knew that the hardest part of its task was before it, the front wall had banked up, and, as it rushed into the ravine, was about thirty feet high. It was now getting dusk, and the color effects were beyond imagination. Pandemonium reigned. Great trees, every branch and leaf on fire, came crashing to earth. One monster tree was carried along upright for about a hundred yards, when suddenly it burst into flame, and came thundering down. Smaller trees, when the flow hit them, would be snapped off at

the base and a log-jam would form, till all of a sudden, by an extra spurt, they would all be buried under tons of molten rock, incinerated instantly, and the gases imprisoned. Then in a few minutes an explosion would follow, and high into the air red-hot lava would fly. In some cases, no explosion followed, but the imprisoned gas would escape with a tremendous flame, and accompanied by a noise for all the world like the exhaust of a giant locomotive. At first, the puffing would be slow, then faster and faster, till at last you could imagine the engine rushing along at sixty miles an hour. Very soon we had to move our position, as falling trees were getting too close for comfort. It was quite dark now, and as we moved higher up the side of the ravine, we could see the flow for a distance of about two miles up the mountainside: a true river of fire-blue, green, gold, and white lights playing over the fiery surface. It was a sight which had to be actually seen to be fully realized, and we felt that we were indeed fortunate.

Back to the horses again, and another détour makau1 to get ahead of the flow. We had no difficulty, as our way was as bright as day, from the glow of that awful fire. As we were watching, this time on horseback, not thirty feet from the flow, out of the gloom, as un

1 Makau. Toward the sea; in this case, down the mountain.

concerned as you please, walked a solitary Japanese. He did not know that any one was within miles of him, yet here he was, out on a little 'look see' for himself. When we left, he was still there, apparently unafraid, and enjoying himself hugely. We had come prepared to stay all night if necessary, but there was a decided chance that the flow would take a turn to the east, and in so doing cut us off from the only trail back. We had been alongside of the flow for hours, and had seen it in all its different aspects and phases, so we decided to hit the trail down the mountain before it should be too late. For a little while, the going was good, for the light from the flow illuminated the trail fairly well; but as we got farther along, and deeper into the forest, every bit of light was shut out until there was nothing but blackness as deep as pitch.

That was a very exciting ride. All we could do was to trust to our horses, and this trust was not misplaced, for after a four hours' slide down that so-called trail, we came to the more open portions of the forest, and below us we could see the lights of automobiles at the Kuhuku Gate. Reaching the road without mishap, tired out, wet, and bedraggled, this time there was no disappointment, for we had seen a real lava flow, close to, and in action. It was with a sense of full satisfaction and thankfulness that we tumbled into bed.

I

THE opponents of alcohol as well as its apologists have always been prone to injure their arguments by exaggeration. The postulate that the alcoholic is always a defective is no more sound than the postulate that the criminal is always a defective. No man is perfect, and while a mental or nervous defective of a pronounced type is usually, though by no means always, an easy victim for alcohol, what alcohol will do to individuals far above this line is often a matter of circumstance and environment. I have seen men with bad inheritance and many stigmata of nervous instability, develop, under proper encouragement and suggestion, a successful resistance to alcohol, and build up will-power and self-control; while on the other hand, I have seen men with good endowment, -men who by no stretch of the imagination could be considered defective in a pathological sense, buffeted by fate, tempted by environment, and prodded by suggestion, gradually yield to the steady use of alcohol-sometimes to complete downfall, sometimes to woeful lack of achievement. Every reader of this magazine can call to mind many fine men who have fallen by the wayside through alcohol, -men whom it would be scientifically ridiculous to call defective.

After all, who are the 'defective'? Where shall we draw the line? Who are the perfect men, these men who are above all manner of temptation, for

whom alcohol is innocuous? While there are many men who have inherited or acquired a stability of mind or nervous system that doubly assures them against attack, I have yet to see the man for whom the more or less steady use of alcohol did not carry some menace. In fact, we are considering the mass of the people, and not exceptional types such as the common drunkard, the insane, or the super-man. Among the mass of the people circumstances plus alcohol often constitute a dangerous combination; and alcohol often is responsible for the circumstances that make it dangerous.

The naïve assumption that alcohol impairs only the fundamentally unfit will not bear analysis, and the development of such a hypothesis into such theories as those of Archdall Reid, who holds that alcohol, by weeding out the unfit, acts as a beneficial evolutionary influence, may easily be carried to a reductio ad absurdum. Such arguments apply with equal force to plague, yellow fever, consumption, pneumonia, and the other communicable diseases, as it is well known that those of low resistance usually succumb to such diseases. Let us then allow them full swing in order to eliminate the non-resistant! The problem of the survival of the unfit must be met in other ways consistent with modern science and altruism, and not through the aid of the corner saloon.

The question as to what the effects might be upon a group of men controlled in such a way that the influence of

so-called moderate drinking could be restricted to the degenerative or toxic effect on organic tissue, while the individuals are protected from life's vicissitudes, is almost purely academic. It could never be duplicated in real life. A group of insured lives must be considered in the moving equilibrium of actual workaday existence, and the many varied relations of that existence to the more or less steady use of alcohol in the quantities used by the mass of the people who drink, must be the touchstones applied to the life-insurance statistics presented in the previous paper.

We must bear in mind that even so mild an indulgence as one or two glasses of champagne or beer three times a month would, in the course of twenty years, make seven hundred and twenty exposures to alcoholic temptation, in addition to whatever disturbing effect on the moral, psychic, or physical condition such doses may have. Among two million individuals, even such slight indulgence would mean, in the course of one year, seventy-two million exposures to such varied adverse effects as there may be in small doses. Among those drinking every day two glasses of beer, the exposures to temptation and to further drinking among two million men would be in the course of one year seven hundred and thirty million, and in twenty-five years eighteen and a quarter billion.

Eighteen and a quarter billion exposures to alcohol might be compared to very distant artillery fire directed at an enemy. Many thousand shells are fired to produce a few fatalities. Many fail to hit, but in the long run there is a definite fatality. The impact of eighteen and a quarter billion doses of alcohol on a group of two million men must certainly place the group at a disadvantage as compared to a group that is not exposed to such impact, provided of course that we find that the total effect

of alcohol in the doses usually taken as a beverage is ever so slightly injurious in a direct way and carries any distinct danger of temptation to increased indulgence to the point where common observation shows it to be a deadly, destructive poison. What is the evidence along these lines?

Is there any sound reason to suspect alcohol of being the underlying cause of the greater part of the extra mortality unquestionably obtaining among users as compared to non-users? If we were confronted by an experience with users of ether or chloroform compared to non-users (ether is widely used in East Prussia, not a prohibition state), should we for one moment question the fact of these drugs being the essential poisonous agent? Even though used in moderate quantities, should we question that cocaine or morphine or hashish or any other habit-forming drug was the chief factor in any extra mortality shown by its users? Only well-supported evidence showing that alcohol in the average quantities used by socalled moderate drinkers produces no bodily ill effects, either directly or indirectly, could justify seeking any other explanation than the influence of alcohol to account for the trend of mortality in the life-insurance experience.

Is there any well-supported evidence that the drinking of the average man is harmless? The laboratory must answer this question.

The most important work that has yet been done in the study of alcohol is that of the Nutrition Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, under the direction of Professors Raymond Dodge and E. C. Benedict.

The work of Benedict and Atwater in establishing the fact that small amounts of alcohol, not to exceed 2.4 ounces daily, are completely oxidized in the body, and that by its tissuesparing qualities alcohol may theoreti