Word: volcanoe
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After her retirement from politics in 1945, she described herself as an "extinct volcano"-but it was not quiet for long. Until very recently, Nancy Astor remained her animated, voluble, rapier-tongued but warmhearted self...
Tazieff lectures on his esoteric specialty at the University of Brussels, but drops his regular work whenever he gets a chance to confront an active volcano. Protected by fiber-glass armor that can deflect a molten bomb weighing 100 Ibs., he carefully stalks into the craters, sometimes close to the roaring throats, and plants seismographs to measure the heartbeat of lava rising deep under the mountain. He samples gases with little glass tubes poked into hot ash, studies the unstable build-up of fresh cinders. So far, Tazieff has escaped without serious injury...
Last month, along with five other Belgian and French volcanologists, Dr. Tazieff made an intimate study of Irazú, which staged several fine explosions for their benefit. There was nothing they could do to cure the eruption, of course, but on their recommendation Minister of the Volcano Jorge Manuel Dengo built an armored observatory on the edge of the crater and equipped it with instruments to report earth tremors that might precede an unusually violent outburst...
Last week the threatened city was a scene of worried preparation. At a cost of $10 million, Volcano Minister Dengo is diverting the course of the Reventado River as it nears Cartago. The upper bed of the river is being cleaned out to reduce the amount of ash that a flood can pick up. Sentries watch for rain on the mountain and report by radio. Plans have been drawn up for the quick evacuation of the city, and the entire population is being immunized against diseases that follow a disaster...
Tazieff has returned to Paris. There is nothing more he can do except wait for news of his patient, the volcano...