OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 413 



able, and I found them to measure from ten to forty feet deep, but, as I remarked before, 

 they are in the more shallow part of the lava, the trees being entirely consumed where it 

 was deeper. During the flow of this eruption the great crater of Kilauea sunk about three 

 hundred feet, and her fires became nearly extinct, one lake only out of many being left in 

 the mighty cauldron. This open lake is at present intensely active, and the fires are increas- 

 ing, as is evident from the glare visible at our station, and from the testimony of visitors. 

 During the early part of the eruption slight and repeated shocks of earthquake were felt, 

 for several successive days, near the scene of action. These shocks were not noticed at Hilo. 

 Through the directing hand of a kind Providence no lives were lost, and but little property 

 was consumed during th : .s amazing flood of fiery ruin. 



"During the progress of the descending stream, it would often fall into some fissure, and 

 forcing itself into apertures, and under massive rocks, and even hillocks and extended plats 

 of ground, and lifting them from their ancient beds, bear them with all their superincumbent 

 mass of soil, trees, etc., on its viscous and livid bosom, like a raft on the water. When the 

 fused mass was sluggish, it had a gory appearance like clotted blood, and when it was active, 

 it resembled fresh and clotted blood mingled and thrown into violent agitation. Sometimes 

 the flowing lava would find a subterranean gallery diverging at right angles from the main 

 channel, and pressing into it would flow off unobserved, till meeting with some obstruction 

 in its dark passage, when, by its expansive force, it would raise the crust of the earth into a 

 dome-like hill of fifteen or twenty feet in height, and then bursting this shell, pour itself 

 out in a fiery torrent around. A man who was standing at a considerable distance from the 

 main stream, and intensely gazing on the absorbing scene before him, found himself suddenly 

 raised to the height of ten or fifteen feet above the common level around him, and he had 

 but just time to escape from his dangerous position, when the earth opened where he had 

 stood, and a stream of fire gushed out." l 



The small crater where the lava first appeared is called Arare, and is about six miles east 

 of Kilauea, in the dense forest. The natives say that the lava rose in this crater about three 

 hundred feet, and then sunk again when the fissure opened below, and at the present time 

 there are evident proofs of this on the crater walls. The line the stream seems to have 

 followed passes through a high hill (seen in the view of the Deep Crater Fig. 44) thus just 

 avoiding this large pit where it might be supposed the resistance would be least, but the 

 hill is undoubtedly hollow, being a cone from which the lava has been emptied, and the 

 cavity beneath it was perhaps larger than that of the pit crater. 



The elevation of the place where the lava finally reached the surface is given by Wilkes 

 at 1244 feet, and it is twenty -seven miles from Kilauea, twenty-one from the first outbreak, 

 and twelve from the shore at Nanawalie. The sand-hills thrown up at this place were found 

 to be one hundred and fifty, and two hundred and fifty feet high, eight months after their 

 formation. At present they are not a third of this height, as the sea has rapidly removed 

 the loose material of which they are composed. There seems to be no reason for supposing 

 that any fissure beneath these hills opening to the interior reservoirs of lava existed, as the 

 height from which the lava reached the sea is amply sufficient to account for their formation, 

 and they do not at present correspond with the other tufa cones on the islands. 



In November of the same year, when visited by Prof. Dana, the lava was still hot in many 

 places, a few feet below the surface. Small sulphur-banks, with deposits of alum and other 

 salts, were met with in several places. 2 



l Missionary Herald, vol. xxxvii., p. 283. 2 Geology United States Exploring Expedition, p. 190 



MEMOIHS BOST. SOC. NAT. HIST. Vol. I. Pt. 3. 105 



