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VESUVIUS, CAMPI
FLEGREI, AND
CAMPANIAN
VOLCANISM
Edited by
BENEDETTO DE VIVO
HARVEY E. BELKIN
GIUSEPPE ROLANDI
Elsevier
Radarweg 29, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, United Kingdom
50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States

Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any


means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the
Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such as the
Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our
website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.

This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under
copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein).

Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research
and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods,
professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and
knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or
experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be
mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they
have a professional responsibility.

To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or
editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a
matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of
any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data


A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-12-816454-9

For information on all Elsevier publications visit our website


at https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals

Publisher: Candice Janco


Acquisition Editor: Amy Shapiro
Editorial Project Manager: Hilary Carr
Production Project Manager: Omer Mukthar
Cover Designer: Mark Rogers

Typeset by TNQ Technologies

Front Cover: the image “La Grande Eruzione del Vesuvio del 1767 - The great 1767
Vesuvius eruption” is of the artist Adriana Pignatelli Mangoni
Contributors

Harvey E. Belkin
Retired, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA, United States

Robert J. Bodnar
Fluids Research Laboratory, Department of Geosciences, Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, United States

Mauro Caccavale
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy

Claudia Cannatelli
Department of Geology, FCFM, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile; Andean
Geothermal Center of Excellence (CEGA), University of Chile, Santiago, Chile

Michael R. Carroll
Università di Camerino- Scuola di Scienze e Tecnologie, Sezione Geologia,
Camerino, Italy

Marta Corradino
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e del Mare (DiSTeM), Università di Palermo,
Palermo, Italy

Maria Rosaria Costanzo


Department of Earth Sciences, Environment and Resources, University of
Naples Federico II, Italy

Giuseppe De Natale
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, sezione di Napoli «Osservatorio
Vesuviano», Napoli, Italy

Benedetto De Vivo
Pegaso On Line University, Naples, Italy; Adjunct Professor, Dept of
Geosciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech),
Blacksburg, VA, United States; Nanjing University, Nanjing, China; Hubei
Polytechnic University, Huangshi, China

Massimo Di Lascio
Consultant, Self-employed Geologist, Battipaglia (Salerno), Naples, Italy
xiv Contributors

Rosario Esposito
University of California, Department of Earth, Planet, and Space Sciences,
Los Angeles, CA, United States

Giuseppe Esposito
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy

Alessandro Fedele
INGVdOsservatorio Vesuviano, Naples, Italy

Sarah Jane Fowler


School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom

Tom Gidwitz
South Dartmouth, MA, United States

Christopher R.J. Kilburn


University College London, London, United Kingdom

Annamaria Lima
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, delle Risorse e dell’Ambiente, Universitá di
Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy

Chiara Macchiavelli
Group of Dynamics of the Lithosphere, Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume
Almera, Structure and Dynamics of the Earth, Barcelona, Spain

Fabio Matano
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy

Alfonsa Milia
ISMAR, CNR, Napoli, Italy

Flavia Molisso
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy

Roberto Moretti
Université de Paris, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, CNRS UMR 7154,
Paris, France; Observatoire Volcanologique et Sismologique de Guadeloupe,
Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Gourbeyre, France
Contributors xv

Concettina Nunziata
Department of Earth Sciences, Environment and Resources, University of
Naples Federico II, Italy

Giuliano Francesco Panza


Emeritus Honorary professor China Earthquake Administration (CEA), Beijing,
China; Honorary professor Beijing University of Civil Engineering and
Architecture (BUCEA), Beijing, China; Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei &
Accademia Nazionale dei XL, Rome, Italy

Salvatore Passaro
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy

Angelo Peccerillo
Retired from Department of Earth Sciences, University of Perugia, Perugia,
Italy

Giulia Penza
University of Camerino, School of Science and TechnologydGeology Division,
Camerino, MC, Italy

Fabrizio Pepe
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e del Mare (DiSTeM), Università di Palermo,
Palermo, Italy

Pietro Paolo Pierantoni


University of Camerino, School of Science and TechnologydGeology Division,
Camerino, MC, Italy

Giuseppe Rolandi
Retired, University Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy

Roberto Rolandi
Dipartimento Scienze della Terra, Ambiente e Risorse, Università di Napoli-
Federico II, Naples, Italy

Daniela Ruberti
Department of Engineering, University of Campania “L. Vanvitelli”, Aversa
(Caserta), Italy

Marco Sacchi
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy
xvi Contributors

Antonio Schettino
University of Camerino, School of Science and TechnologydGeology Division,
Camerino, MC, Italy

Renato Somma
INGVdOsservatorio Vesuviano, Naples, Italy

Frank J. Spera
Department of Earth Science and Earth Research Institute, University of
California, Santa Barbara, CA, United States

Volkhard Spiess
Faculty of Geosciences, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Paola Stabile
Università di Camerino- Scuola di Scienze e Tecnologie, Sezione Geologia,
Camerino, Italy

Lena Steinmann
Faculty of Geosciences, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Stella Tamburrino
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy

Maurizio M. Torrente
DST, Università del Sannio, Benevento, Italy

Claudia Troise
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, sezione di Napoli «Osservatorio
Vesuviano», Napoli, Italy

Eugenio Turco
University of Camerino, School of Science and TechnologydGeology Division,
Camerino, MC, Italy

Mattia Vallefuoco
Istituto di Scienze Marine (ISMAR), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR),
Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy

Guido Ventura
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, INGV, Roma, Italy

Marco Vigliotti
Department of Engineering, University of Campania “L. Vanvitelli”, Aversa
(Caserta), Italy
Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support of Elsevier B.V. through the process of planning, writing,
reviewing, and the production of Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, and Campanian Volcanism.
Behind the Elsevier banner is a staff of extremely competent, hardworking people, without
whom the production of this volume would have been far more difficult and of lesser quality.
Omer Mukthar Moosa, Mark Rogers, Sheela Bernardine B. Josy, and Amy Shapiro are
gratefully thanked. We especially thank Hilary Carr, whose excellent editorship has led and
instructed us to the successful completion of this volume. We also thank Adriana Pignatelli
Mangoni, Naples, Italy, for the use of her gouache La Grande Eruzione del Vesuvio nel 1767
that appears on the volume’s cover. Lastly, we thank all the chapter authors for their con-
tributions and the many peer reviewers for their suggestions and corrections.
Benedetto De Vivo
Harvey E. Belkin
Giuseppe Rolandi
Introduction to Vesuvius, Campi
1
Flegrei, and Campanian
Volcanism
Benedetto De Vivo,1, 2, 3, 4 Harvey E. Belkin,5
Giuseppe Rolandi6
1
Pegaso On Line University, Naples, Italy; 2Adjunct Professor, Dept of
Geosciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech),
Blacksburg, VA, United States; 3Nanjing University, Nanjing, China; 4Hubei
Polytechnic University, Huangshi, China; 5Retired, U.S. Geological Survey,
Reston, VA, United States; 6Retired, University Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy

In August of CE 79, Vesuvius was erupting (although, recent


archeological research suggests the month was October). In
two letters to the Roman historian Tacitus, Pliny the Younger
describes the events. The first letter describes the journey of his
uncle, Pliny the Elder, during which he perished. Pliny the Elder
had received a letter from Rectina, the wife of Tascus, asking to
be rescued, but due to the ongoing eruption, the rescue boat could
not reach the shore near her home and instead Pliny the Elder
sailed to Stabiae to meet Pomponianus where they both died.
The second letter by Pliny the Younger describes his observations
of the eruption from Misenum, a town in the Pozzuoli Gulf, across
the Bay of Naples. These letters are probably the very first detailed
description of a volcanic eruption. It is interesting also to note that
Pliny the Younger never mentions the towns of Ercolano and
Pompeii, so their existence remained unknown until the late
16th century, when they were discovered covered by Mt. Somma
pyroclastics.
For the next two millennia, scientists, clergy, travelers, politi-
cians, ambassadors, and others have written thousands of papers,
books, and other documents on the volcanoes and volcanism in
the Naples region that includes Mt. SommaeVesuvius, Campi
Flegrei (CF), the Island of Ischia, and related rocks. Thus, it would
be reasonable to assume that “all the questions have been asked,
and all the answers have been given” regarding the science of the

Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, and Campanian Volcanism. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-816454-9.00001-8


Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1
2 Chapter 1 Introduction to Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, and Campanian Volcanism

Neapolitan volcanic region. Unfortunately, the reality is just the


opposite!
The geology and geophysics of the Neapolitan volcanic region
are very complexdthe tectonics, the petrology, the lithospheric
structure beneath the volcanic systems, and many other geolog-
ical and geophysical aspects. After nearly 2000 years of research,
the following three questions cannot be answered with any
confidence: will there be another volcanic eruption in the Naples
area, and if so, where, and when?
Answers to these questions do not have just academic interest,
as there are more than three million people living in the Neapol-
itan volcanic region.
In the Repubblica Italiana, the Department of Civil Protection
is given the very important and difficult task of preparing volcanic
risk maps, zoning, and other aspects related to the potential of a
volcanic eruption. The risk maps, zoning, etc., must be continu-
ously updated as new geologic information and research becomes
available. For one thing is absolutely certain that during a volcanic
eruption, the lava, pyroclastic flow, ash cloud, etc., will not obey
any political boundaries or preconceived scenarios.
With this book on the volcanism of the Neapolitan region
(Vesuvius, CF, and ignimbrites in the Campanian plain), we
hope that the scientific points of views of different authors are
not interpreted as “certainties”. Some of the chapters highlight
ongoing controversial subjects related to the volcanism of the
Neapolitan volcanic region, such as the source of the 39 ka
Campanian Ignimbrite (CI), the significance of the bradyseism
in CF, the nature of the Neapolitan Yellow Tuff (NYT) eruption,
and the delineation of volcanic hazard zones for civil protection.
Such controversy is a very healthy part of scientific progress as it
forces all the involved scientists to reexamine their data, assump-
tions, and hypotheses. The literature is filled with rejected or
modified theories as new data were collected and examined.
What we consider important is that whatever the real scenario,
in the short and long term, for Vesuvius, CF, and ignimbrites in
the Campanian plain, the results are obtained only if there is a
nondogmatic approach, which favors an impartial and balanced
evaluation of peer-reviewed research. This, unfortunately, has
often not been the case in Italy in recent years, especially due
to an overly tight and unhealthy link between politics and various
research groups. These links do not benefit science or the society
that supports it. This dogmatic approach is especially egregious if
decisions regarding the public safety and security are made using
biased or poorly evaluated scientific research. We hope that these
chapters will enable researchers to study the controversial issues
Chapter 1 Introduction to Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, and Campanian Volcanism 3

of the Campanian Plain volcanism for the benefit of science and


people living around the metropolitan area of Naples.
Sixteen chapters in this volume have been selected to give the
reader an idea of the current “state of the art” regarding the
various aspects of geology and geophysics related to the Neapol-
itan volcanic region. A short summary of each chapter by the
different authors is given below:
Chapter 2: Belkin and Gidwitz (The contributions and influence
of two Americans, Henry S. Washington and Frank A. Perret, to the
study of Italian volcanism with emphasis on volcanoes in the Naples
area) report the work, significance, and influence, one century ago,
of two American researchers, Henry Stephens Washington and
Frank Alvord Perret, in Italian volcanism with emphasis on Neapol-
itan volcanoes. Both Washington and Perret made significant con-
tributions to the geology, petrology, and volcanology of Italy, in
general, but in particular to the Vesuvius, CF (Phlegraean Fields),
and the Island of Ischia. Both, from the East Coast of the United
States, published classical works on Italian volcanoes, the Roman
Comagmatic Region and the Vesuvius Eruption of 1906, published
by the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Chapter 3: Pierantoni et al. (Kinematics of the Tyrrhenian-
Apennine system and implications for the origin of the Campanian
magmatism) make a reconstruction of the geodynamic evolution
of the Italian peninsula to understand the processes, which
allowed the formation of the magma following the geometry of
the LigurianeIonian slab. In their reconstruction, the Campanian
Plain is located above a singular asthenospheric window, created
by the Ionian slab detachment, which determines, during the
Upper Pleistocene, an elastic rebound of the Apulian continental
lithosphere. The consequent mantle upwelling gives rise to the
huge amount of magma that characterizes the Campanian Plain.
Chapter 4: Nunziata et al. (Lithosphere structural model of the
Campania Plain) discuss the lithosphere structural model of the
Campania Plain. According the authors, a mantle wedge (VS of
about 4.2 km/s), 50 km thick, is found at depths shallower than
30 km, on the top of the westward subducting Apenninic litho-
sphere, overlying two faster layers (VS of about 4.4 km/s) up to
about 300 km of depth. This is compatible with buried huge
amounts (more than 1.5 km) of calc-alkaline andesitic and
basaltic lavas and with the geochemical and petrological findings
that subduction-related magmas, with broadly trachybasaltic
compositions, were parental to all the volcanic suites in Campa-
nia. A main feature in the upper crust is the low VS layer (5%
velocity reduction) that starts at about 14e15 km of depth and
reaches the Moho. The low-velocity crustal layer seems to be a
4 Chapter 1 Introduction to Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, and Campanian Volcanism

regional feature as it has been found below Roccamonfina in the


north and CF, Bay of Naples, and Mt. Vesuvius in the south. The
widespread presence of such layer, with the percentage of velocity
reduction peaking below the CF District and Mt. Vesuvius, seems to
be consistent with the presence of an extended reservoir, fed from
a deep source located in the upper mantle, from which the pockets
of magma may rise to shallower depths.
Chapter 5: Peccerillo (Campania volcanoes: petrology,
geochemistry and geodynamic significance) discuss the petrology,
geochemistry, and geodynamics of the Campania Magmatic
Provincedincluding SommaeVesuvius, CF, and Ischia and Procida
islandsdwhich is petrologically and geochemically distinct from
the Roman province, but with close similarities with Stromboli
volcano, in eastern Aeolian arc, suggesting that the Campania
volcanoes do not represent the southern extension of the Roman
province, but rather the northern end of the Aeolian arc. Both
the Campania and Stromboli parental magmas were generated
from a mantle source that was affected by metasomatic modifica-
tions by fluids coming from the subducting Ionian oceanic slab and
associated sediments. The ocean island basaltetype component of
the eastern Aeolian and Campania volcanoes was provided by
mantle inflow from the foreland. Asthenospheric mantle migration
took place through a slab window formed by along-strike tear-off of
the Ionian-subducting lithosphere and was favored by suctioning
by the slab sinking and rollback toward the southeast.
Chapter 6: Cannatelli (Tracing magma evolution at Vesuvius
volcano using melt inclusions: a review) traces evolution of
SommaeVesuvius, making a review of melt inclusion (MI) studies.
In the last few decades, the volcanic complex has served as a
natural open laboratory, where scientists have applied different
analytical techniques (geophysical and geochemical) to unravel
the nature and evolution of magmas, the location and structure
of magma storage, the effect of volatile on determining frequency,
and the style of eruptions. Cannatelli presents the major findings
and existing knowledge about a geochemical tool that, in the last
few decades, has been used to understand volcanic behavior and
nature: MIs. In particular, the author focuses on the use of MIs as
a tracer for magma geochemical composition and evolution at
SommaeVesuvius and recompiles all the available MI data previ-
ously published in the literature.
Chapter 7: Esposito (Magmatism of the Phlegrean Volcanic
Fields as revealed by melt inclusions), to answer questions on
the evolution and source of the CF magmatism, uses as investiga-
tive tool MIs. Esposito compares the MI data from the literature
related to CF, Procida, and Ischia and he highlights three main
Chapter 1 Introduction to Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, and Campanian Volcanism 5

points based on this comparison. The first is that only a few MI


show quasiprimitive composition, and these can be compared
to investigate the magma sources below the three different local-
ities of the Phlegrean Volcanic District (PVD), highlighting that the
same magma source could be present below the three localities of
the PVD at different times. The second point is that some of the
more evolved MIs show divergence from the bulk rock trend, indi-
cating a natural reheating before eruptions, driven either by hott-
er magma recharging or by crystal settling. The third point is that
many MI in the literature are showed as bubble-bearing, not tak-
ing into account the volatile contents of bubbles, thus indicating
that more research is needed to corroborate or discredit advanced
interpretations of preeruptive volatile contents based on MIs.
Chapter 8: Rolandi et al. (The 39 ka Campanian Ignimbrite
eruption: New data on source area in the Campanian Plain), based
on new drillings through the Campanian Plain, report that the CI
is composed of two 39 ka depositional units, clearly distinguished
by their areal distribution and welding characteristics: CI Unit-1 at
the base, covered in some areas by CI Unit-2. The CI Unit-1 is the
most extensive gray tuff deposit showing an unusual degree of
welding within the southwestern sectordGiugliano areadof the
Campania Plain, which is never found in the ignimbritic
deposits in other areas of the Plain. The absence of a caldera in
the Giugliano area indicates that the CI source is associated
with one or more regional tectonic structures. Probably, this
source area was extended to the south, but it was not related to
the Campi Flegrei caldera (CFc) as assumed by other authors.
From the Giugliano area, the coignimbrite expanding gas
increased strongly, following a long runout over the flat topog-
raphy of the Campanian Plain and by impacting, in the north
and east, the Apennine and Roccamonfina reliefs.
Chapter 9: Ruberti et al. (Effects of the palaeomorphology on
facies distribution of the Campanian Ignimbrite in the northern
Campania Plain, southern Italy) discuss the effects of palaeomor-
phology on facies distribution of the CI (39 ka), one of the most
explosive eruptions in the last 200 ka in Europe. The pyroclastic
deposits associated to this event show different lithofacies from
the vent to the medial distal part reflecting changes in style of
deposition and/or palaeoenvironmental setting. Based on about
1000 well log stratigraphies and previous studies, a qualitative
restoration was made of the pre-39 ka CI eruption palaeomorphol-
ogy of the Campania Plain, where four main paleogeographic
domains are recognized, conditioning the medial/distal distribu-
tion of the lithofacies across the plain and their volcanoclastic
characteristics.
6 Chapter 1 Introduction to Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, and Campanian Volcanism

Chapter 10: Fowler (Petrogenesis of the Campanian Ignim-


brites: a review) reviews intensive research results over the past
two centuries based on tectonic, geochemical, and thermophysical
database within the Campanian Volcanic Zone, particularly with
regard to the voluminous 39.28  0.11 ka CI. New observations
on pre- and post-CI deposits provide a basis for identifying
long-term petrogenetic patterns. The review summarizing different
aspects of Campanian Volcanic Zone research highlights major
advances, providing a foundation on which to test hypotheses
and construct quantitatively constrained predictions. The impor-
tance of fractional crystallization and open-system mechanisms
including magma mixing and assimilation during magma evolu-
tion is emphasized.
Chapter 11: Rolandi et al. (The Neapolitan Yellow Tuff erup-
tion as the source of the Campi Flegrei caldera) present an analysis
of the CF, formed inside a 12  16 km caldera system as a result of
the 15 ka NYT eruption, which produced about 50 km3 of trachytic
magma. Caldera collapse developed within a regional tectonic
extensional regime, where local faults mirror regional fault trends.
The result was complex caldera architecture, indicated by multi-
ple features attributable to the interaction between trapdoor
and downsag geometries. The authors present geological and
volcanological constraints to propose an evolutionary sequence
model whereby the NYT is an isolated volcanic structure that
formed only in response to a single 15 ka eruption, in contrast
to some previous theories.
Chapter 12: Milia and Torrente (Space-time evolution of an
active volcanic field in an extended region: the example of the
Campania Margin, eastern Tyrrhenian Sea) discuss results of their
study investigating offshore and onshore areas of the Campania
Margin in terms of stratigraphy, tectonics, and volcanism at a
regional scale, not focusing their research works at explaining
the relationships between tectonic and volcanism on a single
volcano or eruption. The authors documented and reconstructed
the 3D geometry of several buried volcanoes and volcanoclastic
deposits and recognized a complex late Quaternary tectonic
evolution of the region. These results suggest a strict genetic
link between rifting and volcanic activity in terms of space-time
evolution and that high volumes of magma rose to the surface
through regional faults.
Chapter 13: Stabile and Carroll (Petrologic experimental data
on Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei magmatism: a review) discuss
experimental studies of compositions relevant to magmatism at
Vesuvius and CF, as they provide constraints on the pressure,
temperature, and magmatic volatile activities prevailing during
Chapter 1 Introduction to Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei, and Campanian Volcanism 7

various phases of eruption. Such information helps to define pres-


sures (depths) of origin for some well-studied eruptions and dif-
ferentiation trends that link magma compositions potentially
related by crystal-liquid differentiation processes. Likewise,
studies of volatile solubility in the relatively alkali-rich melt
composition characteristic of Vesuvius and CF magmatism can
provide valuable constraints for interpreting the composition of
MIs in phenocrysts of many eruptive products. The authors
discuss how these experimental data can help to explain pressures
of MI entrapment, the possible importance of hydrosaline brines
in some magmas, and degassing processes or CO2 fluxing experi-
enced by melt compositions preserved in MIs.
Chapter 14: Moretti et al. (Hydrothermal vs. Magmatic:
Geochemical views and clues into the unrest dilemma at Campi
Flegrei), based on the geochemical data recorded at CFc in the
last 35ka, review the two main approaches appearing in the liter-
ature, yielding diametrically opposite conclusions when
comparing the 1982e84 and ongoing (post-2000) CFc unrest epi-
sodes. The authors show that inert gases help to evaluate the
geochemical signature of the deep upwelling gas, not compatible
with a magma migrating to shallow depths in recent times. After
the exhaustion of the volatile content of the shallow magma
emplaced in 1982e84, only the deep-sourced (8 km) magmatic
gas feeds and heats the present-day hydrothermal system. The
authors establish that the nature of the 1982e84 unrest was
magmatic, due to the emplacement of a shallow (3e4 km deep)
magma, interfering with the “normal” degassing dynamics from
the deep (8 km) magmatic reservoir of regional size. On the con-
trary, the post-2005 unrest is unlikely magmatic and most likely
hydrothermal. The discussed scenarios confirm in all cases, and
independently of the type of unrest, the strong role played by
the CO2-rich gas release of deep provenance.
Chapter 15: Cannatelli et al. (Ground movement (bradyseism)
in the Campi Flegrei volcanic area: a review), after illustrating the
CF volcanic evolution, discuss the different theories and interpre-
tation of the ground movements (bradyseism) phenomenon
periodically occurring in one of the highest risk volcanic areas
on Earth and one of the most densely populated volcanically
active areas in the world. The active caldera of CF, located just
west of the city of Naples, has been known since Roman times
for its hydrothermal activity, intense volcanism, and slow, vertical
ground movements, called bradyseism. In their contributions, the
authors provide a detailed review of the several models proposed
in the past 40 years to explain ground movements at CF. Although
several authors propose that the driving mechanism for the
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explanation was, “Oh, w’en I goin’ right I feel good; but w’en I goin’ wrong I
oneasy.”

This natural feeling or impression of things beyond the range of sight, this
extra sense, or chumfo unity of all the senses, is probably akin to another
feeling by which the animal or man becomes aware of distant persons, or of
distant moods or emotions. The sleeping dog’s alarm beneath the weakened
derrick, or the sleeping Indian’s uneasiness near the doomed birch-stub, might
be explained on purely physical grounds: some tremor of parting fibers, some
warning vibration too faint for eardrums but heavy enough to shake a more
delicately poised nerve center, reached the inner beast or the inner man and
roused him to impending danger. (There is a deal of babble in this explanation,
I admit, and still a mystery at the end of it.) But when a man or a brute
receives [73]knowledge not of matter, but of minds or spirits like his own; when
a mother knows, for example, the mental state of a son who is far away, and
when no material vibrations of any known medium can pass between them,—
then all sixth-sense theories, which must rest on the impinging of waves upon
nerve centers, no longer satisfy or explain. We are in the more shadowy region
of thought transference or impulse transference, and it is in this silent,
unexplored region that, as I now believe, a large part of animal
communication goes on continually.

That belief will grow more clear, and perhaps more reasonable, if you follow
this unblazed trail a little farther.
[74]

1 For further example and analysis of the matter, see pp. 196–199. ↑
2 Crawford, Thinking Black (1904). ↑

[Contents]
IV
Natural Telepathy
The way of animal communication now grows dimmer and dimmer, or some
readers may even think it “curiouser and curiouser,” as Alice of Wonderland
said when she found herself lengthening out like a telescope. But there is
certainly a trail of some kind ahead, and since we are apt to lose it or to
wander apart, let us agree, if we can, upon some familiar fact or experience
which may serve as a guiding landmark. Our general course will be as follows:
first, to define our subject, or rather, to make its meaning clear by illustration;
second, to examine the reasonableness of telepathy from a natural or
biological viewpoint; and finally, to go afield with eyes and minds open to see
what [75]the birds or the beasts may teach us of this interesting matter.

It seems to be fairly well established that a few men and women of


uncommonly fine nervous organization (which means an uncommonly natural
or healthy organization) have the power of influencing the mind of another
person at a distance; and this rare power goes by the name of thought
transference, or telepathy. The so-called crossing of letters, when two widely
separated persons sit down at the same hour to write each other on the same
subject, is the most familiar but not the most convincing example of the thing.
Yes, I know the power and the example are both challenged, since there are
scientists who deny telepathy root and branch, as well as scientists who
believe in it implicitly; but I also know something more convincing than any
second-hand denial or belief, having at different times met three persons who
used the “gift” so freely, and for the most part so surely, that to ignore it
would be to abandon confidence in my own sense and judgment. I am not
trying, therefore, to investigate an opinion, but to understand a fact.

To illustrate the matter by a personal experience: For many years after I first
left home my mother would become “uneasy in her mind,” as she expressed it,
whenever a slight accident or [76]danger or sickness had befallen me. If the
event were to me serious or threatening, there was no more doubt or
uneasiness on my mother’s part. She would know within the hour that I was in
trouble of some kind, and would write or telegraph to ask what was the
matter.
It is commonly assumed that any such power must be a little weird or
uncanny; that it contradicts the wholesome experience of humanity or makes
fantastic addition to its natural faculties; and I confess that the general
queerness, the lack of balance, the Hottentotish credulity of folk who dabble in
occult matters give some human, if not reasonable, grounds for the
assumption. Nevertheless, I judge that telepathy is of itself wholly natural;
that it is a survival, an age-old inheritance rather than a new invention or
discovery; that it might be exercised not by a few astonishing individuals, but
by any normal man or woman who should from infancy cultivate certain
mental powers which we now habitually neglect. I am led to this conviction
because I have found something that very much resembles telepathy in
frequent use throughout the entire animal kingdom. It is, as I think and shall
try to make clear, a natural gift or faculty of the animal mind, which is largely
subconscious, and it is from the animal mind that we inherit it; just as a few
woodsmen [77]inherit the animal sense of direction, and cultivate and trust it
till they are sure of their way in any wilderness, while the large majority of
men, dulled by artificial habit, go promptly astray whenever they venture
beyond beaten trails.

That the animals inherit this power of silent communication over great
distances is occasionally manifest even among our half-natural domestic
creatures. For example, that same old setter of mine, Don, who introduced us
to our fascinating subject, was left behind most unwillingly during my terms at
school; but he always seemed to know when I was on my way home. For
months at a stretch he would stay about the house, obeying my mother
perfectly, though she never liked a dog; but on the day I was expected he
would leave the premises, paying no heed to orders, and go to a commanding
ledge beside the lane, where he could overlook the highroad. Whatever the
hour of my coming, whether noon or midnight, there I would find him waiting.

Once when I was homeward bound unexpectedly, having sent no word of my


coming, my mother missed Don and called him in vain. Some hours later,
when he did not return at his dinner-time or answer her repeated call, she
searched for him and found him camped expectantly in the lane. “Oho! wise
dog,” said she. “I understand now. [78]Your master is coming home.” And
without a doubt that it would soon be needed, she went and made my room
ready.
If the dog had been accustomed to spend his loafing-time in the lane, one
might thoughtlessly account for his action by the accident or hit-or-miss
theory; but he was never seen to wait there for any length of time except on
the days when I was expected. And once (unhappily the last time Don ever
came to meet his master) he was observed to take up his watch within a few
minutes of the hour when my train left the distant town. Apparently he knew
when I headed homeward, but there was nothing in his instinct or experience
to tell him how long the journey might be. So he would wait patiently, loyally,
knowing I was coming, and my mother would take his dinner out to him.

In many other ways Don gave the impression, if not the evidence, that he was
a “mind-reader.” He always knew when Saturday came, or a holiday, and
possibly he may have associated the holiday notion with my old clothes; but
how he knew what luck the day had in store for him, as he often seemed to
know the instant I unsnapped his chain in the early morning, was a matter
that at first greatly puzzled me. If I appeared in my old clothes and set him
free with the resolution that [79]my day must be spent in study or tinkering or
farm work, he would bid me good morning and go off soberly to explore the
premises, as dogs are wont to do. But when I met him silently with the notion
that the day was my day off, to be wasted in shooting or fishing or roving the
countryside, then in some way Don caught the notion instantly; he would be
tugging at his leash before I reached him, and no sooner was he free than he
was all over the yard in mad capers or making lunatic attempts to drag me off
on our common holiday before breakfast.

That any dog of mine should obey my word, doing gladly whatever I told him,
was to be expected; or that in the field he should watch for a motion of my
hand and follow it instantly, whether to charge or hold or come in or cast left
or right, was a simple matter of training; but that this particular dog should,
unknown to me, enter into my very feeling, was certainly not the result of
education, and probably not of sight or sense, as we ordinarily understand the
terms. When we were together of an evening before the fire, so long as I was
working or pleasantly reading he would lie curled up on his own mat, without
ever disturbing me till it was time for him to be put to bed, when he would
remind me of the fact by nudging my elbow. But if an hour came when [80]I
was in perplexity, or had heard bad news and was brooding over it, hardly
would I be away in thought, forgetful of Don’s existence on a trail I must
follow alone, when his silky head would slide under my hand, and I would find
his brown eyes searching my face with something inexpressibly fine and loyal
and wistful in their questioning deeps.

Thus repeatedly, unexpectedly, Don seemed to enter into my moods by some


subtle, mysterious perception for which I have no name, and no explanation
save the obvious one—that a man’s will or emotion may fill a room with waves
or vibration as real as those streaming from a fire or a lighted candle, and that
normal animals have some unused bodily faculty for receiving precisely such
messages or vibrations. But we are not yet quite ready for that part of our
trail; it will come later, when we can follow it with more understanding.

Should this record seem to you too personal (I am dealing only with first-hand
impressions of animal life), here is the story of another dog—not a blue-
blooded or highly trained setter, but just an ordinary, doggy, neglected kind of
dog—submitted by a scientific friend of mine, who very cautiously offers no
explanation, but is content to observe and verify the facts: [81]

This second dog, Watch by name and nature, was accustomed to meet his
master much as Don met me in the lane; but he did it much more frequently,
and timed the meeting more accurately. He was nearer the natural animal,
never having been trained in any way, and perhaps for that reason he retained
more of the natural gift or faculty of receiving a message from a distance. His
owner, a busy carpenter and builder, had an office in town, and was
accustomed to return from his office or work at all hours, sometimes early in
the afternoon, and again long after dark. At whatever hour the man turned
homeward, Watch seemed to follow his movement as if by sight; he would
grow uneasy, would bark to be let out if he happened to be in the house, and
would trot off to meet his master about half-way. Though he was occasionally
at fault, and sometimes returned to brood over the matter when his master,
having started for home, was turned aside by some errand, his mistakes were
decidedly exceptional rather than typical. His strange “gift” was a matter of
common knowledge in the neighborhood, and occasionally a doubtful man
would stage an experiment: the master would agree to mark the hour when
he turned homeward, and one or more interested persons would keep tabs on
the dog. So my scientific friend repeatedly [82]tested Watch, and observed him
to take the road within a few moments of the time when his master left his
office or building operations in the town, some three or four miles away.
Thus far the record is clear and straight, but there is one important matter
which my friend overlooked, as scientific men commonly do when they deal
with nature, their mistake being to regard animals as featureless members of a
class or species rather than as individuals. The dog’s master always came or
went in a wagon drawn by a quiet old horse, and upon inquiry I found that
between Watch and the horse was a bond of comradeship, such as often
exists between two domestic animals of different species. Thus, the dog often
preferred to sleep in the stall near his big chum, or would accompany him to
the pasture when he was turned loose, and would always stand by, as if
overlooking the operation, when the horse was being harnessed. It may well
be, therefore, that it was from the horse rather than from the man that Watch
received notice when heads were turned homeward; but of the fact that some
kind of telepathic communication passed between two members of the trio
there is no reasonable doubt.

Some of my readers may make objection at this point that, though something
like telepathic [83]communication appears now and then among the brutes, it
should be regarded as merely freakish or sensational, like a two-headed calf;
while others will surely ask, “Why, if our dogs possess such a convenient
faculty, do they not use it more frequently, more obviously, and so spare
themselves manifold discomforts or misunderstandings?”

Such an objection is natural enough, since we judge as we live, mostly by


habit; but it has no validity, I think, and for two reasons. First, because such
animals as we have thus far seen exercising the faculty (and they are but a
few out of many) are apparently normal and sensible beasts, precisely like
their less-gifted fellows; and second, because the telepathic power itself, when
one examines it without prejudice, appears to be wholly natural, and sane or
simple as the power of thought, even of such rudimentary thought as may be
exercised in an animal’s head. As for emotions, more intense and penetrating
than any thought, it is hardly to be questioned that a man’s fear or panic may
flow through his knees into the horse he is riding, or that emotional
excitement may spread through a crowd of men without visible or audible
expression. That a dog should receive a wordless message or impulse from his
master at a distance of three or four miles is, fundamentally, no more
unnatural than that one [84]man should feel another’s mood at a distance of
three or four feet. Whether we can explain the phenomenon on strictly
biological or scientific grounds is another matter.
I am not a biologist, unfortunately, and must go cat-footedly when I enter that
strange garret. I look with wonder on these patient, unemotional men who
care nothing for a bear or an eagle, but who creep lower and ever lower in the
scale of living things, searching with penetrating looks among infinitesimal
microbes for the secret that shall solve the riddle of the universe by telling us
what life is. And because man is everywhere the same, watching these
exploring biologists I remember the curious theology of certain South-Pacific
savages, who say that God made all things, the stars and the world and the
living man; but we cannot see Him because He is so very small, because a
dancing mote or a grain of sand is for Him a roomy palace. Yet even with a
modest little knowledge of biology we may find a viewpoint, I think, from
which telepathy or thought-transference would appear as natural, as
inevitable, as the forthgoing of light from a burning lamp.

Thus, historically there was a time when the living cell, or the cell-of-life, as
one biologist calls it with rare distinction, was sensitive only to pressure;
[85]when in its darkness it knew of an external world only by its own
tremblings, in response to vibrations which poured over it from every side.
Something made it tremble, and that “something” had motion or life like its
own. Such, imaginatively, was the sentient cell’s first knowledge, the result of
a sense of touch distributed throughout its protecting surface.

Long afterward came a time when the living cell, multiplied now a millionfold,
began to develop special sense-organs, each a modification of its rudimentary
sense of touch; one to receive vibrations of air, for hearing; another to catch
some of the thronging ether waves, for seeing; a third to register the floating
particles of matter on a sensitive membrane, for taste or smelling. By that time
the cell had learned beyond a peradventure that the universe outside itself had
light and color and fragrance and harmony. Finally came a day when the cell,
still multiplying and growing ever more complex, became conscious of a new
power within itself, most marvelous of all the powers of earth, the power to
think, to feel, and to be aware of a self that registered its own impressions of
the external world. And then the cell knew, as surely as it knew sound or light,
that the universe held consciousness also, and some infinite source of thought
and feeling. Such, apparently, [86]was the age-long process from the sentient
cell to the living man.
Since we are following a different trail, this is hardly the time or place to face
the question how this development from mere living to conscious life took
place, even if one were wise or rash enough to grapple with the final problem
of evolution. Yet it may not be amiss while we “rest a pipe,” as the voyageurs
say, to point out that, of the two possible answers to our question (aside from
the convenient and restful answer that God made things so), only one,
curiously enough, has thus far been considered by our physical scientists. The
thousand books and theories of evolution which one reads are all reducible to
this elementary proposition: that the simple things of life became complex by
inner necessity. In other words, an eye became an eye, or an oak an oak, or a
man a man, simply because each must develop according to the inner law of
its being.

That may be true, though the all-compelling “inner law” is still only a vague
assumption, and the mystery of its origin is untouched; but why not by outer
compulsion as reasonably as by inner necessity? A cell-of-life that was
constantly bombarded by moving particles of matter might be compelled to
develop a sense of touch, in order to save its precious life by differentiating
such particles [87]into good and bad, or helpful and harmful. A cell over which
vibrations of air and ether were continually passing might be forced for its own
good to develop an ear and an eye to receive such vibrations as sound and
light; and a cell over which mysterious waves of thought and emotion were
ceaselessly flowing might be driven to comprehend that particular mystery by
developing a thought and emotion of its own.

I do not say that this is the right answer; I mention it merely as a speculative
possibility, in order to get our alleged scientific mind out of its deep rut of
habit by showing that every road has two sides, though a man habitually use
only one; and that Reason or Law or God, or whatever you choose to call the
ultimate mainspring of life, is quite as apt to be found on one side of the road
as on the other. Inner necessity is not a whit more logical or more explanatory
than external force or compulsion when we face the simple fact that an animal
now sees and feels in the light instead of merely existing in darkness, or that
primitive cells which were dimly sentient have now become as thinking gods,
knowing good and evil.

What this thought of ours is we do not know. Beyond the fact that we have it
and use it, thought still remains a profound mystery. That it is a living force of
some kind; that it projects itself [88]or its waves outward, as the sun cannot
but send forth his light; that it affects men as surely as gravitation or heat or
the blow of a hammer affects them,—all this is reasonably clear and certain.
But how thought travels; what refined mental ether conveys it outward with a
speed that makes light as slow as a glacier by comparison, and with a force
that sends it through walls of stone and into every darkness that the light
cannot penetrate,—this and the origin of thought are questions so deep that
our science has barely formulated them, much less dreamed of an answer. Yet
if we once grant the simple proposition that thought is a force, that it moves
inevitably from its source to its object, the conclusion is inevitable that any
thinking mind should be able to send its silent message to any other mind in
the universe. There is nothing in the nature of either mind or matter to
preclude such a possibility; only our present habit of speech, of too much
speech, prevents us from viewing it frankly.

As a purely speculative consummation, therefore, the time may come when


telepathy shall appear as the natural or perfect communication among
enlightened minds, and language as a temporary or evolutionary makeshift.
But that beckons us away to an imaginative flight among the clouds, and on
the earth at our feet is the trail we must follow. [89]

The question why our dogs, if they have the faculty of receiving a master’s
message at a distance, do not use it more obviously, is one that I cannot
answer. Perhaps the reason is obvious enough to some of the dogs, which
have a sidelong way of coming home from their roving, as if aware they had
long been wanted. Or, possibly, the difficulty lies not in the dog, but in his
master. Every communication has two ends, one sending, the other receiving;
and of a thousand owners there are hardly two who know how properly to
handle a dog either by speech or by silence. Still again, one assumption
implied in the question is that dogs or any other animals of the same kind are
all alike; and that common assumption is very wide of the fact. Animals differ
as widely in their instinctive faculties as men in their judgments; which partly
explains why one setter readily follows his master’s word or hand, or enters
into his mood, while another remains hopelessly dumb or unresponsive. The
telepathic faculty appears more frequently, as we shall see, among birds or
animals that habitually live in flocks or herds, and I have always witnessed its
most striking or impressive manifestation between a mother animal and her
young, as if some prenatal influence or control were still at work.
For example, I have occasionally had the good [90]luck to observe a she-wolf
leading her pack across the white expanse of a frozen lake in winter; and at
such times the cubs have a doggish impulse to run after any moving object
that attracts their attention. If a youngster breaks away to rush an animal that
he sees moving in the woods (once that moving animal was myself), the
mother heads him instantly if he is close to her; but if he is off before she can
check him by a motion of her ears or a low growl, she never wastes time or
strength in chasing him. She simply holds quiet, lifts her head high, and looks
steadily at the running cub. Suddenly he wavers, halts, and then, as if the look
recalled him, whirls and speeds back to the pack. If the moving object be
proper game afoot, the mother now goes ahead to stalk or drive it, while the
pack follows stealthily behind her on either side; but if the distant object be a
moose or a man, or anything else that a wolf must not meddle with, then the
mother wolf trots quietly on her way without a sound, and the errant cub falls
into place as if he had understood her silent command.

You may observe the same phenomenon of silent order and ready obedience
nearer home, if you have patience to watch day after day at a burrow of
young foxes. I have spent hours by different dens, and have repeatedly
witnessed what seemed to be excellent discipline; but I have never yet
[91]heard a vixen utter a growl or cry or warning of any kind. That audible
communication comes later, when the cubs begin to hunt for themselves; and
then you will often hear the mother’s querulous squall or the cubs’ impatient
crying when they are separated in the dark woods. While the den is their
home (they seldom enter it after they once roam abroad) silence is the rule,
and that silence is most eloquent. For hours at a stretch the cubs romp lustily
in the afternoon sunshine, some stalking imaginary mice or grasshoppers,
others challenging their mates to mock fights or mock hunting; and the most
striking feature of the exercise, after you have become familiar with the
fascinating little creatures, is that the old vixen, who lies apart where she can
overlook the play and the neighborhood, seems to have the family under
perfect control at every instant, though never a word is uttered.

That some kind of communication passes among these intelligent little brutes
is constantly evident; but it is without voice or language. Now and then, when
a cub’s capers lead him too far from the den, the vixen lifts her head to look at
him intently; and somehow that look has the same effect as the she-wolf’s
silent call; it stops the cub as if she had sent a cry or a messenger after him. If
that happened once, you might overlook it as a [92]matter of mere chance; but
it happens again and again, and always in the same challenging way. The
eager cub suddenly checks himself, turns as if he had heard a command,
catches the vixen’s look, and back he comes like a trained dog to the whistle.

As the shadows lengthen on the hillside, and the evening comes when the
mother must go mousing in the distant meadow, she rises quietly to her feet.
Instantly the play stops; the cubs gather close, their heads all upturned to the
greater head that bends to them, and there they stand in mute intentness, as
if the mother were speaking and the cubs listening. For a brief interval that
tense scene endures, exquisitely impressive, while you strain your senses to
catch its meaning. There is no sound, no warning of any kind that ears can
hear. Then the cubs scamper quickly into the burrow; the mother, without
once looking back, slips away into the shadowy twilight. At the den’s mouth a
foxy little face appears, its nostrils twitching, its eyes following a moving
shadow in the distance. When the shadow is swallowed up in the dusk the
face draws back, and the wild hillside is wholly silent and deserted.

You can go home now. The vixen may be hours on her hunting, but not a cub
will again show his nose until she returns and calls him. If a [93]human mother
could exercise such silent, perfect discipline, or leave the house with the
certainty that four or five lively youngsters would keep out of danger or
mischief as completely as young fox cubs keep out of it, raising children might
more resemble “one grand sweet song” than it does at present.

So far as I have observed grown birds or beasts, the faculty of silent


communication occurs most commonly among those that are gregarious or
strongly social in their habits. The timber-wolves of the North are the first
examples that occur to me, and also the most puzzling. They are wary brutes,
so much so that those who have spent a lifetime near them will tell you that it
is useless to hunt a wolf by any ordinary method; that your meeting with him
is a matter of chance or rare accident; that not only has he marvelously keen
ears, eyes that see in the dark, and a nose that cannot be deceived, but he
can also “feel” a danger which is hidden from sight or smell or hearing. Such is
the Indian verdict; and I have followed wolves often and vainly enough to
have some sympathy with it.
The cunning of these animals would be uncanny if it were merely cunning; but
it is naturally explained, I think, on the assumption that wolves, [94]more than
most other brutes, receive silent warnings from one another, or even from a
concealed hunter, who may by his excitement send forth some kind of
emotional alarm. When you are sitting quietly in the woods, and a pack of
wolves pass near without noticing their one enemy, though he is in plain sight,
you think that they are no more cunning than a bear or a buck; and that is
true, so far as their cunning depends on what they may see or hear. Once
when I was crossing a frozen lake in a snow-storm a whole pack of wolves
rushed out of the nearest cover and came at me on the jump, mistaking me
for a deer or some other game animal; which does not speak very highly for
either their eyes or their judgment. They were the most surprised brutes in all
Canada when they discovered their mistake. But when you hide with ready
rifle near some venison which the same wolves have killed; when you see
them break out of the woods upon the ice, running free and confident to the
food which they know is awaiting them; when you see them stop suddenly, as
if struck, though they cannot possibly see or smell you, and then scatter and
run by separate trails to a meeting-point on another lake—well, then you may
conclude, as I do, that part of a wolf’s cunning lies deeper than his five
senses.

Another lupine trait which first surprised and [95]then challenged my woodcraft
is this: in the winter-time, when timber-wolves commonly run in small packs, a
solitary or separated wolf always seems to know where his mates are hunting
or idly roving or resting in their day-bed. The pack is made up of his family
relatives, younger or older, all mothered by the same she-wolf; and by some
bond or attraction or silent communication he can go straight to them at any
hour of the day or night, though he may not have seen them for a week, and
they have wandered over countless miles of wilderness in the interim.

We may explain this fact, if such it be (I shall make it clear presently), on the
simple ground that the wolves, though incurable rovers, have bounds beyond
which they seldom pass; that they return on their course with more or less
regularity; and that in traveling, as distinct from hunting, they always follow
definite runways, like the foxes. Because of these fixed habits, a solitary wolf
might remember that the pack was due in a certain region on a certain day,
and by going to that region and putting his nose to the runways he could
quickly pick up the fresh trail of his fellows. There is nothing occult in such a
process; it is a plain matter of brain and nose.

Such an explanation sounds reasonable enough; too reasonable, in fact, since


a brute probably [96]acts more intuitively and less rationally; but it does not
account for the amazing certainty of a wounded wolf when separated from his
pack. He always does separate, by the way; not because the others would eat
him, for that is not wolf nature, but because every stricken bird or beast seeks
instinctively to be alone and quiet while his hurt is healing. I have followed
with keen interest the doings of one wounded wolf that hid for at least two
days and nights in a sheltered den, after which he rose from his bed and went
straight as a bee’s flight to where his pack had killed a buck and left plenty of
venison behind them.

In this case it is possible to limit the time of the wounded wolf’s seclusion,
because the limping track that led from the den was but a few hours old when
I found it, and the only track leading into the den was half obliterated by snow
which had fallen two nights previously. How many devious miles the pack had
traveled in the interim would be hard to estimate. I crossed their hunting or
roaming trails at widely separate points, and once I surprised them in their
day-bed; but I never found the limit of their great range. A few days later that
same limping wolf left another den of his, under a windfall, and headed not for
the buck, which was now frozen stiff, but for another deer which the same
pack had killed in a different [97]region, some eight or ten straight miles away,
and perhaps twice that distance as wolves commonly travel.

If you contend that this wounded wolf must have known where the meat was
by the howling of the pack when they killed, I grant that may be true in one
case, but certainly not in the other. For by great good luck I was near the
pack, following a fresh trail in the gray, breathless dawn, when the wolves
killed the second deer; and there was not a sound for mortal ears to hear, not
a howl or a trail cry or even a growl of any kind. They followed, killed and ate
in silence, as wolves commonly do, their howling being a thing apart from their
hunting. The wounded wolf was then far away, with miles of densely wooded
hills and valleys between him and his pack.

Do you ask, “How was it possible to know all this?” From the story the snow
told. At daybreak I had found the trail of a hunting pack, and was following it
stealthily, with many a cautious détour and look ahead, for they are
unbelievably shy brutes; and so it happened that I came upon the carcass of
the deer only a few minutes after the wolves had fed and roamed lazily off
toward their day-bed. I followed them too eagerly, and alarmed them before I
could pick the big one I wanted; whereupon they took to rough country,
[98]traveling a pace that left me hopelessly far behind. When I returned to the
deer, to read how the wolves had surprised and killed their game, I noticed the
fresh trail of a solitary wolf coming in at right angles to the trail of the hunting
pack. It was the limper again, who had just eaten what he wanted and trailed
off by himself. I followed and soon jumped him, and took after him on the
lope, thinking I could run him down or at least come near enough for a
revolver-shot; but that was a foolish notion. Even on three legs he whisked
through the thick timber so much easier than I could run on snow-shoes that I
never got a second glimpse of him.

By that time I was bound to know, if possible, how the limper happened to
find this second deer for his comfort; so I picked up his incoming trail and ran
it clear back to his den under the windfall, from which he had come as straight
as if he knew exactly where he was heading. His trail was from eastward;
what little air was stirring came from the south; so that it was impossible for
his nose to guide him to the meat even had he been within smelling distance,
as he certainly was not. The record in the snow was as plain as any other
print, and from it one might reasonably conclude that either the wolves can
send forth a silent food-call, with some added information, or [99]else that a
solitary wolf may be so in touch with his pack-mates that he knows not only
where they are, but also, in a general way, what they are doing.

In comparison with timber-wolves the caribou is rather a witless brute; but he,
too, has his “uncanny” moods, and one who patiently follows him, with deeper
interest in his anima than in his antlered head, finds him frequently doing
some odd or puzzling thing which may indicate a perception more subtle than
that of his dull eyes or keen ears or almost perfect nose. Here is one example
of Megaleep’s peculiar way:

I was trailing a herd of caribou one winter day on the barrens (treeless plains
or bogs) of the Renous River in New Brunswick. For hours I had followed
through alternate thick timber and open bog without alarming or even seeing
my game. The animals were plainly on the move, perhaps changing their
feeding-ground; and when Megaleep begins to wander no man can say where
he will go, or where stop, or what he is likely to do next. Once, after trailing
him eight or ten miles, twice jumping him, I met him head-on, coming briskly
back in his own tracks, as if to see what was following him. From the trail I
read that there were a dozen animals in the herd, and that one poor wounded
brute lagged continually behind the others. He was going on three legs;
[100]his right forefoot, the bone above it shattered by some blundering hunter’s
bullet, swung helplessly as he hobbled along, leaving its pathetic record in the
snow.

On a wooded slope which fell away to a chain of barrens, halting to search the
trail ahead, my eye caught a motion far across the open, and through the
field-glass I saw my herd for the first time, resting unsuspiciously on the
farther edge of the barren, a full mile or more away. From my feet the trail led
down through a dense fringe of evergreen, and then straight out across the
level plain. A few of the caribou were lying down; others moved lazily in or out
of the forest that shut in the barren on that side; and as I watched them two
animals, yearlings undoubtedly, put their heads together for a pushing match,
like domestic calves at play.

Hardly had I begun to circle the barren, keeping near the edge of it but always
out of sight in the evergreens, when I ran upon a solitary caribou trail, the trail
of the cripple, who had evidently wearied and turned aside to rest, perhaps
knowing that his herd was near the end of its journey. A little farther on I
jumped him out of a fir thicket, and watched him a moment as he hobbled
deeper into the woods, heading away to the west. The course surprised me a
little, for his mates [101]were northward; and at the thought I quickly found an
opening in the cover and turned my glass upon the other caribou. Already they
were in wild alarm. For a brief interval they ran about confusedly, or stood
tense as they searched the plain and the surrounding woods for the source of
danger; then they pushed their noses out and racked away at a marvelous
pace, crossing the barren diagonally toward me and smashing into the woods
a short distance ahead, following a course which must soon bring them and
their wounded mate together. If I were dealing with people, I might say
confidently that they were bent on finding out what the alarm was about; but
as I have no means of knowing the caribou motive, I can only say that the two
trails ran straight as a string through the timber to a meeting-point on the
edge of another barren to the westward.
If you would reasonably explain the matter, remember that these startled
animals were far away from me; that the cripple and myself were both hidden
from their eyes, and that I was moving upwind and silently. It was impossible
that they should hear or see or smell me; yet they were on their toes a
moment after the cripple started up, as if he had rung a bell for them. It was
not the first time I had witnessed a herd of animals break away when, as I
suspected, they had received some [102]silent, incomprehensible warning, nor
was it the last; but it was the only time when I could trace the whole process
without break or question from beginning to end. And when, to test the matter
to the bottom, I ran the trail of the herd back to where they had been resting,
there was no track of man or beast in the surrounding woods to account for
their flight.

One may explain this as a mere coincidence, which is not an explanation; or


call it another example of the fact that wild animals are “queer,” which is not a
fact; but in my own mind every action of the caribou and all the circumstances
point to a different conclusion—namely, that the fear or warning or impulse of
one animal was instantly transferred to others at a distance. I think, also, that
the process was not wholly unconscious or subconscious, but that one animal
sent forth his warning and the others acted upon it more or less intelligently.
This last is a mere assumption, however, which cannot be proved till we learn
to live in an animal’s skin.
They stood tense as they searched the plain and surrounding
woods for the source of danger.

[102]
It is true that the event often befalls otherwise, since you may jump one
animal without alarming others of the same herd; and it is possible that the
degree or quality of the alarm has something to do with its carrying power, as
we feel the intense emotion of a friend more quickly than his ordinary
[103]moods. In this case the solitary caribou was tremendously startled; for I
was very near, and the first intimation he had of me, or I of him, was when my
snow-shoe caught on a snag and I pitched over a log almost on top of him.
Yet the difficulty of drawing a conclusion from any single instance appears in
this: that I have more than once stalked, killed and dressed an animal without
disturbing others of his kind near at hand (it may be that no alarm was sent
out, for the animal was shot before he knew the danger, and in the deep
woods animals pay little attention to the sound of a rifle); and again, when I
have been trying to approach a herd from leeward, I have seen them move
away hurriedly, silently, suspiciously, in obedience to some warning which
seemed to spread through the woods like a contagion.

The latter experience is common enough among hunters of big game, who are
often at a loss to explain the sudden flight of animals that a moment ago,
under precisely the same outward influences, were feeding or resting without
suspicion. Thus, you may be stalking a big herd of elk, or wapiti, which are
spread out loosely over half a mountainside. You are keen for the master bull
with the noble antlers; nothing else interests you, more’s the pity; but you
soon learn that the cunning old [104]brute is hidden somewhere in the midst of
the herd, depending on the screen of cow-elk to warn him of danger to his
precious skin. Waiting impatiently till this vanguard has moved aside, you
attempt to worm your way nearer to the hidden bull. You are succeeding
beautifully, you think, when a single cow that you overlooked begins to act
uneasily. She has not seen or heard you, certainly, and the wind is still in your
favor; but there she stands, like an image of suspicion, head up, looking,
listening, testing the air, till she makes up her mind she would as lief be
somewhere else, when without cry or grunt or warning of any kind that ears
can hear she turns and glides rapidly away.

Now if you value animal lore above stuffed skins, or experience above the
babble of hunting naturalists, forget the big bull and his greed-stirring antlers;
scramble quickly to the highest outlook at hand, and use your eyes. No alarm
has been sounded; the vast silence is unbroken; yet for some mysterious
reason the whole herd is suddenly on the move. To your right, to your left,
near at hand or far away, bushes quiver or jump; alert brown forms appear or
vanish like shadows, all silent and all heading in the direction taken by the first
sentinel. One moment there are scores of elk in sight, feeding or resting
[105]quietly; the next they are gone and the great hillside is lifeless. The thrill
of that silent, moving drama has more wisdom in it, yes, and more pleasure,
than the crash of your barbarous rifle or the convulsive kicking of a stricken
beast that knows not why you should kill him.

Such is the experience, known to almost every elk-hunter who has learned
that life is more interesting than death; and I know nothing of deer nature to
explain it save this—that the whole herd has suddenly felt and understood the
silent impulse to go, and has obeyed it without a question, as the young wolf
or fox cub obeys the silent return call of his watchful mother.

Such impulses seem to be more common and more dependable among the
whales, which have rudimentary or imperfect sense-organs, but which are
nevertheless delicately sensitive to external impressions, to the approach of
unseen danger, to the movements of the tiny creatures on which they feed, to
changes of wind or tide and to a falling barometer, as if nature had given them
a first-class feeling apparatus of some kind to make up for their poor eyes and
ears. Repeatedly have I been struck by this extraordinary sensitiveness when
watching the monstrous creatures feeding with the tide in one of the great
bays of the Newfoundland or the Labrador coast. If I lowered a [106]boat to
approach one of them, he would disappear silently before I could ever get
near enough to see clearly what he was doing. That seemed odd to me; but
presently I began to notice a more puzzling thing: at the instant my whale
took alarm every other whale of the same species seemed to be moved by the
same impulse, sounding when the first sounded, or else turning with him to
head for the open sea.

A score of times I tried the experiment, and commonly, but not invariably, with
the same result. I would sight a few leviathans playing or feeding, shooting up
from the deep, breaching half their length out of water to fall back with a
tremendous souse; and through my glasses I would pick up others here or
there in the same bay. Selecting a certain whale, I would glide rapidly toward
him, crouching low in the dory and sculling silently by means of an oar over
the stern. By some odd channel of perception (not by sight, certainly, for I
kept out of the narrow range of his eye, and a whale is not supposed to smell
or hear) he would invariably get wind of me and go down; and then, jumping
to my feet, I would see other whales in the distance catch the instant alarm,
some upending as they plunged to the deeps, others whirling seaward and
forging full speed ahead. [107]

This observation of mine is not unique, as I supposed, for later I heard it


echoed as a matter of course by the whalemen. Thus, when I talked with my
friend, Captain Rule, about the ways of the great creatures he had followed in
the old whaling-days, he said, “The queerest habit of a whale, or of any other
critter I ever fell foul of, was this: when I got my boat close enough to a
sperm-whale to put an iron into him, every other sperm-whale within ten miles
would turn flukes, as if he had been harpooned, too.” But he added that he
had not noticed the same contagion of alarm, not in the same striking or
instantaneous way, when hunting the right or Greenland whale—perhaps
because the latter is, as a rule, more solitary in its habits.

Wolves and caribou and whales are far from the observation of most folk; but
the winter birds in your own yard may some time give you a hint, at least, of
the same mysterious transference of an impulse over wide distances. When
you scatter food for them during a cold snap or after a storm (it is better not
to feed them regularly, I think, especially in mild weather when their proper
food is not covered with snow) your bounty is at first neglected except by the
house sparrows and starlings. Unlike our native birds, these imported
foreigners are easily “pauperized,” seeking [108]no food for themselves so long
as you take care of them. They keep tabs on you, also, waiting patiently about
the house, and soon learn what it means when you emerge from your back
door on a snowy morning with a broom in one hand and a pan in the other.
They are feeding greedily the moment your back is turned, and for a time they
are the only birds at the table. When they have gorged themselves, for they
have no manners, a few tree-sparrows and juncos flit in to eat daintily. Then
suddenly the wilder birds appear—jays, chickadees, siskins, kinglets and, oh,
welcome! a flock of bob-whites—coming from you know not where, in
obedience to a summons which you have not heard. Some of these may have
visited the yard in time past, and are returning to it now, hunger driven; but
others you have never before met within the city limits, and a few have their
accustomed dwelling in the pine woods, which are miles away. How did these
hungry hermits suddenly learn that food was here?
The answer to that question is simple, and entirely “sensible” if you think only
of birds that live or habitually glean in your neighborhood. Some of them saw
you scatter the food, or else found it by searching, while others spied these
lucky ones feeding and came quickly to join the feast. For birds that live wider
afield there is also [109]an explanation that your senses can approve, though it
is probably wrong or only half right: from a distance they chanced to see
wings speeding in the direction of your yard, and followed them expectantly
because wings may be as eloquent as voices, the flight of a bird when he is
heading for food being very different from the flight of the same bird when he
is merely looking for food. But these most rare visitors, kinglets or pine-finches
or grosbeaks or bob-whites, that never before entered your yard, and that
would not be here now had you not thought to scatter food this morning,—at
these you shake your head, calling it chance or Providence or mystery,
according to your mood or disposition. To me, after observing the matter
closely many times, the reasonable explanation of these rare visitors is that
either wild birds know how to send forth a silent food-call or, more likely, that
the excitement of feeding birds spreads powerfully outward, and is felt by
other starving birds, alert and sensitive, at a distance beyond all possible
range of sight or hearing. By no other hypothesis can I account for the fact
that certain wild birds make their appearance in my yard at a moment when a
number of other birds are eagerly feeding, and at no other time, though I
watch for them from one year’s end to another.

Like every other explanation, whether of stars [110]or starlings, this also leads
to a greater mystery. The distance at which such a summoning call can be felt
by others must be straitly limited, else would all the starving birds of a state
be flocking to my yard on certain mornings; and the force by which the silent
call is projected is as unknown as the rare mental ether which bears its waves
or vibrations in all directions. Yet the problem need not greatly trouble us,
since the answer, when it comes, will be as natural as breathing. If silent or
telepathic communication exists in nature, and I think it surely does, the
mystery before us is no greater than that which daily confronts the astronomer
or the wireless operator. One measures the speed of light from Orion; the
other projects his finger-touch across an ocean; but neither can tell or even
guess the quality of the medium by which the light or the electric wave is
carried to its destination.
[111]

[Contents]
V
The Swarm Spirit
This is a chapter on the wing drill of birds, the swarming of bees, the panics
and unseasonal migrations of larger or smaller beasts, and other curious
phenomena in which the wild creatures of a flock or herd all act in unison,
doing the same thing at the same time, as if governed by a single will rather
than by individual motives. If it should turn out that the single will were
expressed in a voice or cry, or even in a projected impulse, then are we again
face to face with our problem of animal communication.

Of the fact of collective action there is no doubt, many naturalists having


witnessed it; and there is also a strictly orthodox explanation. Thus, when
[112]you see a large flock of crows “drilling” in the spring or autumn, rising or
falling or wheeling all together with marvelous precision, the ornithologists
resolve the matter by saying that the many crows act as one crow because
they follow a “collective impulse”; that is, because the same impulse to rise or
fall or wheel seizes upon them all at precisely the same moment. And this they
tell you quite simply, as if pointing out an obvious fact of natural history, when
in reality they are showing you the rarest chimera that ever looked out of a
vacuum.

Now the wonderful wing drill of certain birds has something in it which I
cannot quite fathom or understand, not even with a miracle of collective
impulse to help me; yet I have observed two characteristics of the ordered
flight which may help to dispel the fog of assumption that now envelops it.
The first is, that the drill is seen only when an uncommonly large number of
birds of the same kind are gathered together, on a sunny day of early spring,
as a rule, or in the perfection of autumn weather.

The starlings 1 furnish us an excellent example [113]of this peculiarity. For


months at a stretch you see them about the house, first in pairs, next in family
groups, then in larger companies, made up, I think, of birds raised in the same
neighborhood and probably all more or less related; but though you watch
these companies attentively from dawn to dusk, you shall never see them
going through any unusual wing drill. Then comes an hour when flocks of
starlings appear on all sides, heading to a common center. They gather in
trees here or there about the edges of a great field or a strip of open beach,
all jabbering like the blackbirds, which they imitate in their cries, flitting about
in ceaseless commotion, but apparently keeping their family or tribal
organization intact. Suddenly, as at a signal, they all launch themselves toward
the center of the field; the hundred companies unite in one immense flock,
and presto! the drill is on. The birds are no longer individuals, but a single-
minded myriad, which wheels or veers with such precision that the ash of their
ten-thousand wings when they turn is like the flicker of a signal-glass in the
sun.

The same characteristic of uncommon numbers holds true of the crows and,
indeed, of all other species of birds, save one, that ever practise the wing drill.
Wild geese when in small companies, each a family unit, have a regular and
beautiful [114]flight in harrow-shaped formation; but I have never witnessed
anything like a wing drill among them save on one occasion, when a thousand
or more of the birds were gathered together for a few days of frolic before
beginning the southern migration. Nor have I ever seen the drill among
thrushes or warblers or sparrows or terns or seagulls, which sometimes gather
in uncounted numbers, but which do not, apparently, have the same motive
that leads crows or starlings to unite in a kind of rhythmic air-dance on
periodic occasions.

A second marked characteristic of the wing drill is that it is invariably a


manifestation of play or sport, and that the individual birds, though they keep
the order of the play marvelously well, show in their looks and voices a
suppressed emotional excitement. The drill is never seen when birds are
migrating or feeding or fleeing from danger, though thousands of them may be
together at such a time, but only when they assemble in a spirit of fun or
exercise, and their bodily needs are satisfied, and the weather or the
barometer is just right, and no enemy is near to trouble them. Whatever their
motive or impulse, therefore, it is certainly not universal or even widespread
among the birds, since most of them do not practise the drill; nor is it in the
least like that mysterious impulse which suddenly sets all the squirrels of a
region in [115]migration, or calls the lemmings to hurry over plain and forest
and mountain till they all drown themselves in the distant sea; for no sooner is
the brief drill over than the companies scatter quietly, each to its own place,
and the individual birds are again alert, inquisitive, well balanced, precisely as
they were before.
The drill is seen at its best among the plover, I think; and, curiously enough,
these are the only birds I know that practise it frequently, in small or large
numbers and in all weathers. I have often watched a flock come sweeping in
to my decoys, gurgling like a thousand fifes with bubbles in them; and never
have I met these perfectly drilled birds, which stay with us but a few hours on
their rapid journey from the far north to the far south, without renewed
wonder at their wildness, their tameness, their incomprehensible ways. That
you may visualize our problem before I venture an explanation, here is what
you may see if you can forget your gun to observe nature with a deeper
interest:

You have risen soon after midnight, called by the storm and the shrilling of
passing plover, and long before daylight you are waiting for the birds on the
burnt-over plain. Your “stand” is a hole in the earth, hidden by a few berry-
bushes; and before you, at right angles with the course of the storm (for
plover always wheel to head into the [116]wind when they take the ground),
are some scores of rudely painted decoys. As the day breaks you see against
the east a motion as of wings, and your call rings out wild and clear, to be
echoed on the instant. In response to your whistle the distant motion grows
wildly fantastic; it begins to whirl and eddy, as if a wisp of fog were rolling
swiftly down-wind; only in some mysterious fashion the fog holds together,
and in it are curious flickerings. Those are plover, certainly; no other birds
have that perfect unity of movement; and now, since they are looking for the
source of the call they have just heard, you throw your cap in the air or wave
a handkerchief to attract attention. There is an answering flash of white from
the under side of their wings as the plover catch your signal and turn all at
once to meet it. Here they come, driving in at terrific speed straight at you!

It is better to stop calling now, because the plover will soon see your decoys;
and these birds when on the ground make no sound except a low, pulsating
whistle of welcome or recall. This is uttered but seldom, and unless you can
imitate it, which is not likely, your whistling will do no good. Besides, it could
not possibly be heard. Listen to that musical babel, and let your nerves dance
to it! In all nature there is nothing to compare for utter wildness with the
fluting of incoming plover. [117]

On they come, hundreds of quivering lines, which are the thin edges of wings,
moving as one to a definite goal. Their keen eyes caught the first wave of your
handkerchief in the distance; and now they see their own kind on the ground,
as they think, and their babel changes as they begin to talk to them. Suddenly,
and so instantaneously that it makes you blink, there is a change of some kind
in every quivering pair of wings. At first, in the soft light of dawn, you are sure
that the plover are still coming, for you did not see them turn; but the lines
grow smaller, dimmer, and you know that every bird in the flock has whirled,
as if at command, and is now heading straight away. You put your fingers to
your lips and send out the eery plover call again and again; but it goes
unheeded in that tumult of better whistling. The quivering lines are now all
blurred in one; with a final flicker they disappear below a rise of ground; the
birds are gone, and you cease your vain calling. Then, when you are thinking
you will never see that flock again, a cloud of wings shoot up from the plain
against the horizon; they fall, wheel, rise again in marvelous flight, not as a
thousand individuals but as a unit, and the lines grow larger, clearer, as the
plover come sweeping back to your decoys once more.

Such is the phenomenon as I witnessed it repeatedly [118]on the Nantucket


moors, many years ago. The only way I can explain the instantaneous change
of flight is by the assumption, no longer strange or untested, that from some
alarmed plover on the fringe or at the center of the flock a warning impulse is
sent out, and the birds all feel and obey it as one bird. That the warning is a
silent one I am convinced, for it seems impossible that any peculiar whistle
could be heard or understood in that wild clamor of whistling. Nor is it a
satisfactory hypothesis that one bird sees the danger or suspects the quality of
the decoys, and all the others copy his swift flight; for in that case there must
be succession or delay or straggling in the turning, and the impression left on
the eye is not of succession, but of almost perfect unity of movement.

The only other explanation of the plovers’ action is the one commonly found in
the bird-books, to which I have already briefly referred, and which we must
now examine more narrowly. It assumes that all the birds of a migrating flock
are moved not by individual wills, but by a collective impulse or instinct, which
affects them all alike at the same instant. In support of this favorite theory we
are told to consider the bees, which are said to have no individual motives,
and no need for them, since they blindly follow a swarm or hive instinct
[119]that makes them all precisely alike in their actions. The same swarm
instinct appears often in the birds, but less strongly, because they are more

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