418 VV. T. BRIGIIAM ON THE VOLCANIC PHENOMENA 



near the upper precipice, and passed the great fissure at a respectful distance. And I have 

 been told by those who observed and felt it, that so great was the heat on the road above 

 the western precipice, seven hundred feet above the fires, that they were obliged to hold 

 their hats between their faces and the crater and pass rapidly along to avoid it. The upper 

 banks also of the crater are smoking and steaming intensely. 



"For twenty years I have watched the movements of the great crucible of Nature — this 

 Hawaiian volcano — with intense interest, and never, perhaps, have I seen the fires more 

 extensively distributed over the crater, or more active and vivid in their play." 



Under date of October 22d, 1855, he continues: "After this the action gradually moder- 

 ated until the summit crater [eruption of 1855 on Mauna Loa] broke out, and it remains 

 now much as it was then. There are now about a dozen open lakes of raging lava in 

 Kilauea, extending in two semicircular lines from the great fountain lake, Halemdumau, 

 along the eastern and western sides of the crater, and evidently forming vents to igneous 

 subterranean canals which are carrying the incandescent floods from this great active vent 

 to the northern parts of the crater, sometimes overflowing this region and sometimes heav- 

 ing up the ponderous superincumbent strata, like the surface of an agitated ocean. The 

 great dome over Halem&umau is swept away, and a raised and jagged rim from twenty to 

 sixty feet high, now encircles it. The fusion may be one hundred feet below. The move- 

 ment of the streams northward is distinctly seen through the valves or vents mentioned 

 above. The encircling belt has been raised from one to two hundred feet since last April, 

 first, by uplifting forces ; second, by successive overflowings." l 



Under date of October 22d, 1856, he writes : "During the whole of the past year 

 Lua Pele has been getting more and more profoundly asleep. A little sluggish lava 

 is found in the great pit of Halema\unau, and the steam issues from a thousand vents. But 

 there is no subsidence of the floor of the crater. This vast area of hardened lavas keeps 

 its elevation some six hundred feet above the level of the floor that was formed at the 

 eruption of 1840." 2 



September 1st, 1857, Mr. Coan writes : "I was at Kilauea in June last. Pele was 

 rather quiet. All the area of Halemaumau is now a deep basin encircled by a rim 

 consisting, in some places, of a bold perpendicular precipice, and in others of an inclined plane 

 of unequal angles rent into numerous yawning fissures, and strewed with burnt masses of 

 scoriae. The bottom of this basin is rent and smoking, and studded with a few cones near 

 the centre and enclosed by a jagged rim from twenty to fifty feet high, is the lake of fire 

 which has burned from time immemorial. It is about one hundred feet below the rim, and 

 some five hundred feet in diameter." 3 



During the eruption of Mauna Loa, Kilauea was visited to see if any extraordi- 

 nary action was visible, but it was comparatively quiet. The fires showed no sym- 

 pathy with those being poured out ten thousand feet above. 



Visitors to Kilauea were more numerous after the grand eruption of Mauna Loa of this 

 year, but for several succeeding years they had little to report, but the ordinary activity of 

 the crater. The Halemaumau always exhibited fire, and the cracks poured out steam and 

 vapor, and the accounts of the action varied with the impressibility of the various reporters. 

 Although no marked change took place, the vast abyss was slowly filling up, and its surface 

 became more and more uneven and broken. The very slight shocks of earthquakes, not 



1 Silliman's Journal [n. s.], vol. xxi., p. 144. 2 Ibid. vol. xxiii., p. 438. 3 Ibid. vol. xxv., p. 136. 



