OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 411 



" For several years past the great crater of Kilauea has been rapidly filling up by the 

 rising of the superincumbent crust, and by the frequent gushing forth of the molten sea 

 below. In this manner the great basin below the black ledge, which has been computed 

 from three to five hundred feet deep, was long since filled up by the ejection and cooling of 

 successive masses of the fiery fluid. These silent eruptions continued to occur at intervals, 

 until the black ledge was repeatedly overflowed, each cooling and forming a new layer from 

 two feet thick and upwards, until the whole area of the crater was filled up, at least fifty feet 

 above the original black ledge, and thus reducing the whole depth of the crater to less than 

 nine hundred feet. This process of filling up continued till the latter part of May 1840, when, 

 as many natives testify, the whole area of the crater became one entire sea of ignifluous mat- 

 ter, raging like old ocean when lashed into fury by a tempest. For several days the fires 

 raged with fearful intensity, exhibiting a scene awfully terrific. The infuriated waves sent 

 up infernal sounds, and dashed with such maddening energy against the sides of the awful 

 cauldron, as to shake the solid earth above, and to detach huge masses of overhanging rocks, 

 which, leaving their ancient beds, plunged into the fiery gulf below. So terrific was the scene 

 that no one dared to approach near it, and travellers on the main road, which lay along 

 the verge of the crater, feeling the ground tremble beneath their feet, fled and passed by at 

 a distance. I should be inclined to discredit these statements of the natives, had I not since 

 been to Kilauea and examined it minutely with these reports in view. Every appearance 

 however, of the crater confirms these reports. Every thing within the cauldron is new. Not 

 a particle of lava remains as it was when I last visited it. All has been melted down and 

 recast. ... I will now give a short history of the eruption itself. 



" On the 30th of May, the people of Puna observed the appearance of smoke and fire in 

 the interior, a mountainous and desolate region of that district. Thinking that the fire 

 might be the burning of some jungle, they took little notice of it until the next day, 

 Sabbath, when the meetings in the different villages were thrown into confusion by sudden 

 and grand exhibitions of fire, on a scale so large and fearful as to leave them no room to 

 doubt the cause of the phenomenon. The fire augmented during the day and night ; but 

 it did not seem to flow off rapidly in any direction. All were in consternation, as it was 

 expected that the molten flood would pour itself down from its height of four thousand feet 

 to the coast, and no one knew to what point it would flow, or what devastation would 

 attend its fiery course. On Monday, June 1st, the stream began to flow off in a north- 

 easterly direction, and on the following Wednesday, June 3d, at evening, the burning river 

 reached the sea, having averaged about half a mile an hour in its progress. The rapidity 

 of the flow was very unequal, being modified by the inequalities of the surface, over which 

 the stream passed. Sometimes it is supposed to have moved five miles an hour, and at other 

 times, owing to obstructions, making no apparent progress except in filling up deep valleys, 

 and in swelling over or breaking away hills and precipices. 



" But I will return to the source of the eruption. This is in a forest, and in the bottom 

 of an ancient wooded crater, about four hundred feet deep, and probably eight miles east 

 of Kilauea. The region being uninhabited and covered with a thicket, it was some time 

 before the place was discovered ; and up to this time, though several foreigners have at- 

 tempted it, no one, except myself, has reached the spot. From Kilauea to this place the 

 lava flows in a subterranean gallery probably at the depth of a thousand feet, but its course 

 can be distinctly traced all the way, by the rending of the crust of the earth into innumer- 



