264 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



able absence of sulphur and its compounds, its odor not being 

 perceptible, and paper containino: acetate of lead not being blaek- 

 ened by the fumes. Muriate of ammonia was detected in the 

 acid fumaioles, and, in small quantity, even in the diy, as well as 

 the alkaline. The four lower craters detonated ditferently from 

 the other three ; the detonations of the latter were two or three 

 per minute, rest^mbling thunder, while those of the, former were a 

 continuous series, too I'apid to be counted, like the blows of a 

 hammer on an anvil. 



VOLCANIC EKUPTION AT MAUNA LOA, HAWAII. 



A jet of lava, of more stupendous proportions than any ever 

 conceived of, is described by Mr. Coan in the Honolulu "Friend" 

 of I'Vlnniury, in his ueenunt of the eruption of Mauna Loa, on the 

 Island of liawaii, in lS(i.j-imiG. 



" The eruption commenced near the summit of the mountain, and 

 only five or six miles south-east of the eruption of 1843. For two 

 days this summit crater sent down its burning floods along the 

 north-eastern slope of the mount;un ; then suddenly the valve closed, 

 and the great furnace apparently ceased blast. After thirty-six 

 hours the fusia was seen bursting out of the eastern side of the 

 mountain, about midway from tlie top of tlie base. 



" It would seem that the summit lava had found a subterranean 

 tunnel ; for, half-way down the mountain, when coming to a weak 

 point, or meeting with some obstruction, it burst up vertically, 

 sending a column of incandescent fusia one thousand feet high 

 into the air. This lire jet was about one hundred feet in diam- 

 eter, and was sustaincsd for twenty days and Tiights, varying in 

 height from one hundred to a thousand feet. The disgorgement 

 from the mountain-side was often with terrific explosions, which 

 shook the hills, and with detonations which were heard for forty 

 miles. This column of liquid fire was an object of surpassing 

 brilliancy, of intense and awful grandeur. As the jet issued 

 from the awful orifice, it Avas at white heat. As it ascended 

 higher and higher, it reddened like fresh blood, deepening its 

 color, until, in its descent, much of it assumed the color of clotted 

 gore. 



"In a few days it had raised a cone some three hundred feet 

 high around the 1)urning orifice, and as the showers of burning 

 minerals fell in livid torrents upon the cone, it became one vast 

 heap of glowing coals, flashing and quivering with restless action, 

 and sending out the heat of ten thousand furnaces in full blast. 



" The struggles in disgorging the fiery masses, the u]jward rush 

 of the column, the force which raised it one thousand vertical 

 feet, and the continuous falling back of thousands of tons of 

 mineral fusia into the throat of the crater, and over a cone of 

 glowing minerals, one mile in circumference, was a sight to inspire 

 awe and terror; it was attended with explosive shocks which 

 seemed to rend the mural ribs of the mountain. From this fountain 

 a river of fire went rushing and leaping down the mountain with 

 amazing velocity, filling up basins and ravines, dashing over preci- 



