358 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



stream, it parts, and divides into a great number, spreading out over a tract 

 of live or six miles in width. For the first six miles from the crater, the 

 descent is rapid, varying from four to ten miles an hour. But after reaching 

 the level plain the stream moves slower. Here the streams are not so nu- 

 merous as higher up, there being a principal one, which varies, and is very 

 irregular, from an eighth to a half mile in width, though there are frequent 

 branches running off from it. This principal stream reached the sea, near 

 "\Vainanalii, on the 31st of January, after a flow of eight days. When it 

 reached the sea, it spread out about half a mile in width. Some of the finest 

 scenes of the flow were the cascades or falls formed in it before the lava reached 

 the plain. There were several of them, and they appeared to be changing, 

 and new ones formed in different localities as new streams were made. One, 

 however, that remained apparently unchanged for two days, must have been 

 eighty or one hundred feet in height. First, there was a fall; then, below 

 were cascades or rapids. To watch this fall during the night, when the 

 bright, red-hot stream of lava was flowing over it, at the rate of ten miles 

 an hour, like water, was a scene never to be forgotten. 



Another writer describes the jets from the crater of the volcano, as fol- 

 lows : " Before you, at a distance of two miles, rises the new-formed crater, 

 in the midst of fields of black, smoking lava, while from its centre there jets 

 a column of red-hot lava to an immense height, threatening instant annihi- 

 lation to any presumptuous mortal Avho should come within the reach of its 

 scathing influence. The crater may be one thousand feet in diameter, and 

 from one to one hundred and fifty feet high. The column of liquid lava 

 which is constantly sustained in the air, is from two hundred to five hundred 

 feet high, and perhaps the highest jets may reach as high as seven hundred 

 feet! There is a constant and rapid succession of jets, one within another; the 

 masses falling outside, and cooling as they fall, form a sort of dark veil, 

 through which the new jets darting up with every degree of force and every 

 variety of form, render this grand fire-fountain one of the most magnificent 

 objects that human imagination can conceive of. From the top of the lava 

 jets, the current of heated air carries up a large mass of scoria and pumice, 

 which falls again in constant showers for some miles -around the crater." 



Prof. Haskell, of Oahu College, thus describes the flow of the river of lava 

 from the mountain to the sea : 



" Descending by the stream of lava flowing from the mountain, we were 

 able to follow it on its south side, as a strong wind was blowing from that 

 direction. Here we found good walking, and could with safety approach 

 within a few feet of the channel. The width of the stream was from twenty 

 to one hundred feet, but its velocity almost incredible. Some of our party 

 thought it one hundred miles per hour. We could not calculate it in any 

 way, for pieces of cold lava thrown into it would sink and melt almost in- 

 stantly. The velocity certainly seemed as great as that of a railroad car. 

 For eight or ten miles the stream presented a succession of cascades, rapids, 

 curves, and eddies, Avith an occasional cataract. Some of these were formed 

 by the nature of the ground over which it flowed, some by the new lava 

 itself. The stream had built up its own banks on each side, and had added 

 to the depth of its channel by melting at the bottom. The stream flowed 

 more gracefully than water. In consequence of its immense velocity and 

 imperfect mobility, its surface took the same shape as the ground over 

 which it flowed. It therefore presented not only hollows, but ridges. In 

 several places, for a few feet, the course of the stream was an ascent of five 



