GEOLOGY. 289 



as to excite the most lively feelings of awe and admiration, even when 

 viewed at a distance of forty or fifty miles. How much more awe-in- 

 spiring would it have been at a distance of one or two miles, where 

 the sounds accompanying such an eruption could have been heard. The 

 fall of such a column would doubtless cause the earth to tremble ; and 

 the roar of the rushing mass would have been like the might)' waves 

 of the ocean beating upon a rock-bound coast. The diameter of this jet 

 is supposed to be over one hundrejl feet, and this we can easily believe, 

 when we reflect that from it proceeded the river of lava that flowed 

 off from it toward the sea. In some places this river is a mile wide, 

 and in others more contracted. At some points it has filled up ravines 

 one hundred, two hundred, and three hundred feet in depth, and still 

 it flowed on." 



Mr. Coan, a missionary, residing at Ililo furnishes another graphic 

 description. He says : " On the 17th instant, at twenty minutes past 

 3, A. 3,1., a small beacon light appeared on the summit of Manna Loa. 

 This light increased until it looked like a rising moon. In half an 

 hour, brilliant columns of lava shot up against the heavens, and a gen- 

 eral burst of blood red fusion poured out of the same orifice appar- 

 ently, which disgorged such awful floods in 1843. We were awakened 

 at about 4 o'clock, and saw a glare of light streaming through our 

 windows. Our first thought was that some building near us was on 

 fire, but on rising we soon perceived that the whole summit of the moun- 

 tain was irradiated, and that a vast furnace was there glaring with 

 vehement heat. The molten flood rolled down the side of the moun- 

 tain so rapidly that in two hours we judged its progress to have been 

 fifteen miles, the whole lava glaring with great brilliancy. This flow 

 continued through the day, but with decreasing energy. It became 

 sluggish at night, and the next day, or after twenty-four hours, no 

 traces of it were visible from the station ; no smoke by day and no 

 fire by night. At six o'clock, A. M.. on the 20th, yesterday, we per- 

 ceived fire issuing from the side of the mountain toward Hilo, and 

 about halfway down the mount. This lateral crater soon became 

 intensively active, pouring out a gory flood which soon reached the 

 base of the mount. At first the stream shot directly down towards 

 Hilo ; but meeting some obstacle near the foot of the mount its direc- 

 tion was changed to the north, and it is still flowing towards Mauna 

 Loa. A vast area between the mountains is already filled with fire, 

 and the scene by night is one of terrible sublimity. The red hot lava 

 still rolls out of the side of the mountain in awful floods. It seems as 

 if the bowels of Pluto were being disgorged. While I write, our 

 whole atmosphere is filled with lurid smoke, through which the sun 

 looks down upon us with a yellow and baleful light. The horizon is 

 hung in murky drapery ; detonations, like distant thunder, are heard 

 from the mountain, and capilliform filaceous vitrifactions are filling 

 our streets." 



On the 6th of March the lava was still flowing, and the light emitted 

 by the stream was so intense, that small objects could be most clearly 

 seen at midnight in Hilo. 



