OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 417 



ing at no distant day to engulf the whole overhanging mass within its burning bowels. 

 Aside from this increased action within the dome, no important changes have occurred in the 

 crater for two years past." ' 



Under date of January 30th, 1854, he continues : " Changes have been slowly 

 taking place within the crater. A gradual rising is going on in the whole floor of 

 the crater. This is effected by two causes, — first, by the uplifting forces below, as gases, 

 igneous fusion, etc., — and second, by repeated overflowings. The former is more uniform 

 and general, the latter irregular and partial. You are aware that all the central part of the 

 floor of the crater, embracing nearly one half of its area, is an elevated plateau, the hio-hest 

 points of which are now some six hundred feet above what was the floor after the eruption 

 of 1840. This central elevation rises in some places gradually, in others abruptly, from the 

 surrounding floor. On the east and south-east its mural walls are perpendicular, presenting 

 a dark, lofty, and frowning rampart which no human foot can scale. Of course the black 

 ledge is now a lower plane than this central table, at its highest point, by about two hundred 

 feet. Many parts of the black ledge have also been elevated by subterranean forces. From 

 repeated agitation of the sea around our shores, — instances of which have recently occurred, 

 — we are led to think that submarine eruptions are occasionally taking place on the sub- 

 merged portions of Hawaii, or from volcanic mountains and cones covered by the waters of 

 the Pacific." 2 



July the 18th, 1855, Mr. Coan writes: 3 "For months past this awful furnace has 

 been brightening and glowing, and raging and roaring with fearful intensity. The 

 action, however, is all confined to the great dome and the girdle between the central table 

 and the crater walls ; while the elevated interior is unaffected, and even begins to produce 

 plants and ohelo-berries. But it is surrounded by the burning streams of Phlegethon, and 

 stands as a burnt island in a sea of fire. The great dome (over Halemaumau) is thundering 

 and throwing up columns of dashing fusion from its horrid throat to a height of two hun- 

 dred feet, while its walls tremble at the fury of those waves which rage and dash within. 

 Occasionally a burning river bursts through the rent chasm near its base, and rolls 

 in glaring waves over all that region, flooding the heavens with light, and fillino- the 

 spectator with mingled emotions of delight, of awe, and of terror. But this is not half. 

 The whole of the surrounding belt, from its periphery at the base of the great walls of 

 Kilauea, to the elevated central platform, and even eight miles in circumference by half a 

 mile in diameter, is in a state of intense activity. Over this surface I could count sixty lakes 

 of fusion. The whole of this surface is not, of course, broken and fused at once ; but it is 

 everywhere rent with fissures, studded with burning cones, and dotted with boiling lakes ; 

 and even the solid portions of the surface are so hot as almost to crisp the sole of one's 

 shoes, while the smoke and the pungent gases render it difficult to travel in some parts and 

 impossible in others. 



" During the last week in May and the first in June, visitors and passing travellers re- 

 ported a fiery girdle around the whole circumference of Kilauea, along the base of her lofty 

 walls, — and so intense was the heat, so suffocating the gases, so fearful the hissings, so 

 awful the surgings, and so startling the detonations, that horses wheeled and plunged with 

 panic, and men retired from the old Ka-u and Hilo road which, as you may recollect, lay 



1 Silliman's Journal [n. s.], vol. xvi., p. 46. 2 Ibid. vol. xxi., p. 46. 3 Ibid. vol. xxi., p. 100. 



MEMOIRS DOST. SOC. NAT. HIST. Vol. I. Pt. 3. 106 



