362 KILAUEA. [1840. 



Kilauea, on the island of Hawaii. The first, which has been 

 before referred to, is much higher than the other ; but Kilauea 

 is by far the most striking and peculiar. It is totally unlike 

 other volcanoes, and exhibits no permanent jets of fire, or flam- 

 ing cones, or eruptions of heated stones; but it consists of a 

 vast depression, or basin, — on the flank of Mauna Loa, four 

 thousand feet above the ocean, and about twenty miles east of 

 the main volcano, — within which is a seething cauldron in a 

 constant state of terrific ebullition, where the boiling waves of 

 molten lava are continually surging to and fro, while they howl 

 and hiss like angry demons. This, in olden time, was the abode 

 of the great Pele, the principal goddess of the Hawaiian; 

 and it is scarcely to be wondered, that the pagan should have 

 associated his chosen deity with a phenomenon that filled 

 him with so much awe, terror, and astonishment. 



It is not far from one thousand feet, from the crest of the 

 overhanging bank down to the surface of this fiery lake. 

 The crater is of an oval figure, and is three and a half miles 

 Jong and two and a half miles wide. It is surrounded by 

 drifted heaps of scoria, and massive piles of lava, among 

 which are frequently found bundles of capillary glass, called 

 " Pete's hair" by the natives, springing from the crevices 

 and fissures, and waving in the wind like long threads of the 

 softest cotton. An occasional aperture from which the hot 

 steam escapes, — now quite often employed in cooking food by 

 strangers and natives, both alike indifferent to the good 

 pleasure of mistress Pele, — breaks the surface of the mountain. 

 Vegetation is but scanty. A few ferns, that derive their 

 principal sustenance from the vapors rising from the lake be- 

 neath, take root in the crannies amid the ledge of basaltio 

 reeks that surrounds the crater ; and in their rear are stunted 

 shrubs, and tall and sickly tufts of grass, which dot thi 

 of the mountain, at wide intervals, down io the dark line of 

 vegetation that encircles its base. 



Nearly seven hundred feet below the outer bank is a black 

 ledge of indurated lava, to which the mass boiling in the pool 

 below occasionally rises, and having lost a great part of its 



