Paracutin was born in Mexico in February, 1943. At the end of one week Paracutin was 500 feet high, and it is now over 9,000 feet high. Today Paracutin is asleep.

What is Paracutin? It was the first volcano(火山) in the world which was seen from its birth right up to the present day. On February 20, 1943, a peasant and his wife set out to work in their corn fields from the Mexican village of Paracutin. They were surprised to find the earth warm under their feet. Suddenly they heard noises deep in the earth and a small hole appeared in their field. In the afternoon there was a sudden loud noise and stones were thrown high in the air. The peasants ran from the field and turned to watch. They saw the birth of a volcano.

Large quantities of stone and lava(岩浆) broke out and a little hill began to form. By evening this hill was 100 feet high and hot ashes(灰烬) were falling on the village. At night the strong light of the hot lava lit up the countryside. The trees near the village were killed and the villagers had to leave their houses. When the village was destroyed, its name was given to the volcano. The news quickly reached Mexico City, far to the east. Many people came to watch the scene. The volcano grew and grew for ten years and hundreds of square miles of forest were destroyed. Then Paracutin went to sleep.

Mr. Evans works in Sydney. Last week he had a two-week holiday, but he didn’t know where to go. He said to his friend Robert, “I hate the hot weather here, but I can’t find a cool place in Australia. Where shall I take my holiday?”

“That’s easy,” said Robert, “You can go to Moscow. Snow and ice are covering the ground there now.”

Mr. Evans agreed with his friend. He bought a plane ticket and soon got to Moscow. He had a happy time there. But one day he got into trouble. After lunch he went to a park outside the city. He saw a dog following him while he was walking past a house. It was hungry and wished him to give it some food to eat. But he had no piece of bread or cake in his pockets. He tried to send it away, but it began to bark at him. Just at that moment, he saw a stone on the ground. He tried to pick it up but he couldn’t.

“How strange these Russians are!” Mr. Evans said to himself, “They do not tie their dogs, but firmly tie the stones!”.

The French couple, Katia and Maurice Krafft, shared an attraction to volcanoes, one that perhaps approached an addiction. There are many people interested in volcanoes, but very few who are willing to climb an erupting crater(火山口) and approach the flowing lava(岩浆). Katia and Maurice did a lot of work, shooting photographs and films of volcano eruptions, always being the first on the scene of an active volcano, and the ones who fearlessly came to just a few feet from lava flows. They were not only highly respected by volcanologists all around the world, but also envied.

The couple metinthe1960s when they were both students at the University of Strasbourg, and got married in 1970. Both of them were attracted to volcanoes since childhood. Upon graduating, Katia and Maurice pursued their careers as volcano observers with no financial support at all, just their own savings, which they spent on a trip to Stromboli to observe the eruption of the volcano.

They took an incredible and valuable set of photographs of the near-continuous eruption. People were curious about the photographs, while public officials working on threatening volcanoes found them useful. This interest in their work helped the French couple to establish a career in documenting eruptions. Now able to obtain financial support for their work, Katia and Maurice visited hundreds, if not thousands, of volcanoes around the globe. They traveled and recorded eruptions, always getting closer to the danger than anyone else.

In June 1991, along with 40 other people, the Kraffts set out to film the eruption at Mount Unzen in Japan. A sudden and unexpected flow took place and all the people in its path were killed. Later investigation revealed that Katia’s and Maurice’s bodies were closest to the volcano crater. They were 44 and 45 years old respectively.

In their 25-year-long career, the couple documented hundreds of volcanoes, and their work consists of thousands of sill photos, 300 hours off film materials, a number of books, and scientific articles published in Bulletin of Volcanology.