OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 427 



seen in the table on another page. The remainder of the week was too cloudy to take pho- 

 tographs, and I was reluctantly obliged to send back my instruments, and return to Hilo. 

 In May, 1866, Kilauea commenced a series of discharges all over the surface of the 



1866 



crater which were still in operation in August. New lakes of fire opened along a 

 curve north-west to north of the great lake of Lua Pele, flooding all that portion of the 

 crater with fresh lava, and reaching even to the sulphur-banks on the southern side of the 

 plain, in a stream about four miles long and from an eighth to half of a mile wide, cutting 

 off for much of this time the usual entrance to the crater. This whole portion of Kilauea 

 now flooded was about fifty feet below the central area ; it is now at least a hundred feet 

 higher than it was last year, but the central plateau has also risen, and the relative height 

 is about the same. The whole appearance of the crater has however changed. The ledge 

 of compact broken lava, which swept around the eastern end of the crater, marking the 

 limits of Dana's Black Ledge, is nearly covered with the successive overflowings, and the 

 caves which formed so interesting a feature of this portion of the crater are filled and 

 obliterated. 



The throes and detonations caused large blocks to fall from the outer walls, and the heav- 

 ing of the intensely active flood at their base soon removed the debris, thus showing the 

 method in which pit craters may be enlarged horizontally. Travellers who visited Kilauea 

 while this eruption lasted, speak of the hissings and spoutings, the subterranean rumblings 

 and detonations, as terrific. In August the force of the eruption seemed to be spent, but 

 no subterranean outflow was perceived, and the crater remains full of broken and hard lava. 

 A few more such eruptions will raise the bottom to a level with the upper walls, and Kilauea 

 will cease to exist as a Pit Crater. 



Craters south-east of Kilauea} The cone craters near Kapoho on the coast of Puna have 

 been described. The same line of volcanic action extends to Kilauea, and seems to mark 

 the position of an extensive rent in the side of the mountain. No foreigner has well ex- 

 plored this region of craters, as the jungle is almost impenetrable ; and the Rev. T. Coan was 

 the first who discovered the craters near the eruption of 1840. Dr. Charles Pickering ex- 

 tended his explorations to a greater distance, and mapped out some of the craters which 

 were ofterwards verified by Captain Wilkes. More than fifty cones and pit craters, some of 

 the latter of remarkable size, have been seen, and the number will probably exceed a 

 hundred when the whole district shall be well explored. 



The passage through this way has been exceedingly difficult, until the last few years, 

 when the business of picking and exporting pulu has become so important, that paths have 

 been cut by the pulu-pickers, and several stations established for their convenience. The 

 great similarity of the cones and craters in this region, and the fact that they are all formed 

 in the same lava-beds, renders a particular description unnecessary, and I will content myself 

 with a brief account of a journey through the part of the forest where the largest are 

 placed. 



Here and there on the way from the coast at Panau we passed lava streams. Ohia-trees 

 were growing on these, thin and tall, suggestive of Alpine regions ; indeed, I have seen pre- 

 cisely such forests on the Swiss mountains, and there was a peculiar grace, which, while 

 nleasing the eye, yet conveyed the idea of a struggle for existence amid the storms which 



1 There is a fine chart of the Puna craters among the maps of the Exploring Expedition. 



