Erebus
Erebus names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Erebus a noted Antarctic volcano
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a noted Antarctic volcano. It stands in latitude 78 deg. S.; longitude, 170 deg. E. Its snow-clad slopes rise from the border of the great ice barrier to the crater fourteen miles inland and 13,000 feet above the level of the sea. It is an active volcano lighting up the Antarctic night with a fitful glow heightened by frequent bursts of flame from the crater. The mountain has been built up by outpourings of lava. No flow has occurred in recent times, but a column of steam shoots up at intervals of time to a height of nearly a mile, and trails away in a cloud before the wind . The crater is described as 900 feet in depth and half a mile wide. Clouds of steam fill the bowl. The observations can be made only when a favoring breeze carries the steam aside or whips the crater empty. The atmosphere is redolent of sulphur. Feldspar crystals, two or three inches in length, many of them perfect in outline, lie strewn about. They all were once imbedded in pumice stone, but, as the latter disintegrated, it was blown away in the form of dust, leaving these beautiful crystals behind. The air is so cold that huge cones of ice form about the fissures from which steam issues.
Erebus er'e-bus, in Greek mythology
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
er'e-bus, in Greek mythology, the son of Chaos and brother of Night. The word signifies impenetrable darkness, and was used to designate the gloomy cavern which must be traversed before the shades reached Hades. In the Odyssey and by later writers it is used as synonymous with Hades. The word has come to be symbolical of darkness. "Dark as Erebus," says Shakespeare.
Erebus MOUNT, an active volcano on Victoria Land
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
MOUNT, an active volcano on Victoria Land, in lat. 78° 10' S., rising 12,367 feet above the sea. It was discovered in 1841 by Ross, who named it after one of his vessels. Captain R. F. Scott's Antarctic expedition wintered in the vicinity (1901-1904) and Sir E. Shackleton's party made the ascent in 1908.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The Greek myth entry stands as written in 1910: Erebus is still the primordial darkness of Hesiod's genealogy, and Shakespeare's "dark as Erebus" is still quoted. The volcano is another matter. Aiton's reported in 1910 that "no flow has occurred in recent times"; in fact Erebus holds one of the world's few persistent lava lakes, a churning pool of phonolite magma that has been continuously monitored since the early 1970s and regularly hurls out molten bombs along with the big anorthoclase feldspar crystals the 1910 account admired. Its height is now put at about 12,448 feet (3,794 m), and on 28 November 1979 Air New Zealand Flight 901 flew into its lower slopes, killing all 257 aboard, the worst disaster in Antarctic history. HMS Erebus, the ship Ross named it for in 1841 as Collier's records, was itself found in 2014 on the floor of the Canadian Arctic, lost with the Franklin expedition.
Written for this edition, 2026.