Phillips. — On the Volcanoes of the Pacific. 209 



He and others sat on the ground bracing themselves with 

 hands and feet to avoid being rolled over. They saw an 

 avalanche of red earth, which they supposed to be lava, burst 

 from the mountain-side, throwing rocks high into the air, 

 swallowing up houses, trees, men, and animals, and travelling 

 three miles in as many minutes, burying a hamlet with thirty- 

 one inhabitants and five hundred head of cattle. The people 

 of the valleys fled to the mountains, which themselves were 

 splitting in all directions, and, collecting on an elevated spot, 

 with the earth reeling under them, they spent the night of the 

 2nd April in prayer and singing. Looking towards the shore, 

 they saw it sink, and at the same moment a wave, whose 

 height was estimated at from 4:0 ft. to 60 ft., hurled itself 

 upon the coast and receded five times, destroying whole 

 villages, and even strong stone houses, with a touch, and 

 engulfing for ever forty - six people who had lingered too 

 near the shore. Still the earthquake continued, and still the 

 volcano gave no sign. The nerves of many people gave way 

 in these fearful days. Some tried to get away to Honolulu ; 

 others kept horses saddled on which to fly, they knew not 

 whither. The hourly question was, What of the volcano? 

 People put their ears to the quivering ground and heard, or 

 thought they heard, the surgings of the imprisoned lava-sea 

 rending its way among the ribs of the earth. Five days after 

 the destructive earthquake of the 2nd April the ground south 

 of Hilo burst open with a crash and roar which at once 

 .answered all questions concerning the volcano. The molten 

 river, after travelling underground twenty miles, emerged 

 through a fissure two miles in length with a tremendous force 

 and volume. It was in a pleasant pastoral region, supposed 

 to be at rest for ever, at the top of a grass-covered plateau 

 covered with native and foreign houses, and rich in herds of 

 cattle. Four huge fountains boiled up with terrific fury, 

 throwing crimson lava, and rocks weighing many tons, to a 

 height of from 500 ft. to 1,000 ft. Mr. Whitney, of Honolulu, 

 who was near the spot, says, ' From these great fountains to 

 the sea flowed a rapid stream of red lava, rolling, rushing, and 

 tumbling like a swollen river, bearing along in its current large 

 rocks that made the lava foam as it dashed down the preci- 

 pice and through the valley into the sea, surging and roaring 

 throughout its length like a cataract, with a power and fury 

 perfectly indescribable. It was nothing else than a river of fire 

 from 200 ft. to 800 ft. wide and 20 ft. deep, with a speed vary- 

 ing from ten to twenty-five miles an hour.' This same intel- 

 ligent observer noticed as a peculiarity of the spouting that the 

 lava was ejected by a rotary motion, and in the air both lava 

 and stones always rotated towards the south. At Kilauea I 

 noticed that the lava was ejected in a southerly direction. 

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