412 W. T. BRIGHAM ON THE VOLCANIC PHENOMENA 



able fissures, and by the emission of smoke, steam, and gases. Tbe eruption in this old crater 

 is small, and from this place the stream disappears again for the distance of a mile or two 

 when the lava again gushes up and spreads over an area of about fifty acres. Again it 

 passes underground for two or three miles, when it reappears in another old wooded crater, 

 consuming the forest and partly filling up the basin. Once more it disappears, and flowing 

 in a subterranean channel, cracks and breaks the earth, opening fissures from six inches to 

 ten or twelve feet in width, and sometimes splitting the trunk of a tree so exactly that its 

 legs stand astride at the fissure. At some places it is impossible to trace the subterranean 

 stream on account of the impenetrable thicket under which it passes. After flowing under- 

 ground several miles, perhaps six or eight, it again broke out like an overwhelming flood, 

 and sweeping forest, hamlet, plantation, and every thing before it, rolled down with resistless 

 energy to the sea, where, leaping a precipice of forty or fifty feet, it poured itself in one vast 

 cataract of fire into the deep below, with loud detonations, fearful hissings, and a thousand 

 unearthly and indescribable sounds. Imagine to yourself a river of fused minerals, of the 

 breadth and depth of Niagara, and of a deep gory red, falling in one emblazoned sheet, one 

 raa:ine torrent, into the ocean. . . . The atmosphere in all directions was filled with ashes, 

 spray, gases, etc. ; while the burning lava as it fell into the water was shivered into millions 

 of minute particles, and, being thrown back into the air fell in showers of sand on all the 

 surrounding country. The coast was extended into the sea for a quarter of a mile, and 

 a pretty sand beach, and a new cape were formed. Three hills of scoria? and sand were 

 also formed in the sea, the lowest about two hundred, and the highest about three hundred, 

 feet. 



" For three weeks this terrific river disgorged itself into the sea with little abatement. 

 Multitudes of fishes were killed, and the waters of the ocean were heated for twenty miles 

 alono- the coast. The breadth of the stream where it fell into the sea, is about half a mile, 

 but inland it varies from one to four or five miles in width, conforming itself, like a river, to 

 the face of the country over which it flowed. The depth of the stream will probably vary 

 from ten to two hundred feet, according to the inequalities of the surface over which it 

 passed. During the flow night was converted into day on all eastern Hawaii ; the light was 

 visible for more than one hundred miles at sea ; and at the distance of forty miles fine print 

 could be read at midnight. 



" The whole course of the stream from Kilauea to the sea is about forty miles. The 

 ground over which it flowed descends at the rate of one hundred feet to the mile. The 

 crust is now cooled, and may be traversed with care, though scalding steam, pungent gases, 

 and smoke are still emitted in many places. In pursuing my way for nearly two days over 

 this mighty smouldering mass, I was more and more impressed at every step with the won- 

 derful scene. Hills had been melted down like wax; ravines and deep valleys had been 

 filled ; and majestic forests had disappeared like a feather in the flames. On the outer edge 

 of the lava, where the stream was more shallow and the heat less vehement, and where of 

 course the liquid mass cooled soonest, the trees were mowed down like grass before the 

 scythe, and left charred, crisp, smouldering, and only half consumed. As the lava flowed 

 around the trunks of large trees on the outskirts of the stream, the melted mass stiffened 

 and consolidated before the trunk was consumed, and when this was effected, the top of the 

 tree fell, and lay unconsumed on the crust, while the hole which marked the place of the trunk 

 remains almost as smooth and perfect as the calibre of a cannon. These holes are innumer- 



