OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 399 



into the liquid fire and measured the thickness of its shell, which was from two to five 

 feet. 



" Wherever vegetable matter is being consumed there is smoke ; when this is exhausted 

 there is none. Consequently I argue that there are no fissures extending to the central 

 fires of the earth, except for a few miles near the summit of the mountain. 



" 3d. Again, and what is more reliable, I have surveyed the ground upon which lava- 

 streams have been approaching, for distances of five to twenty miles, and have seen the 

 burning flood move on, covering to-day the ground on which I travelled yesterday, and 

 consuming the hut where I slept ; and the process is so familiar that it is difficult to see 

 how I can be mistaken. 



" I think that this stream of lava is noiv flowing more than sixty miles longitudinally 

 under its own refrigerated cover ; but I may be mistaken. No fire is seen anywhere 

 except at the end of the stream. Here it still pushes out and spreads and heaps with 

 little abatement, while the great mountain furnace sends up large and continuous volumes 

 of smoke." 1 



To this exceedingly full and minute account, I need only add that I visited the terminus 

 of the stream, where it ceased to flow, in 1865, and found the whole appearance of the 

 stream in strict accordance with Mr. Coan's account. The surface was horribly rough and 

 piled with slabs of hardened crust in vast ridges extending for miles. I slept on the fresh 

 lava and examined the structure minutely, and found nothing to distinguish this stream from 

 other eruptions, except its broken condition, arising from the wet soil over which it passed, 

 which raised the surface into huge blisters. Where the lava fell into the water it was shiv- 

 ered into coarse sand like the deposit near Honolulu, and as the water was evaporated the 

 pahoehoe covered the ground almost entirely and even penetrated its mass. The angles 

 down which the continuous stream of lava fell were as large as Mr. Coan mentions, and the 

 lava does not seem much more cellular here than on level ground. 



At the lowest edge of the lava flow, I found, on the more ancient rock beneath, rounded 

 masses of red earth of the consistency of putty, and as large as a man's head. The}' were 

 in considerable number, and seemed to have been pushed along by the lava ; their softness 

 was owing to the rain, as when dried they became as hard as dried potter's clay. 2 The 

 surface of the lava was covered with a minute lichen on which vast numbers of succineas 

 had been feeding. 



A letter from Prof. R. C. Haskell of Oahu College, gives the following very full 

 account of the important eruption of 1859 : — 



" Our party consisted of Prof. Beckwith, Prof. Alexander, myself, and twenty students of 

 the College. Twelve of us went to the source of the flow. . . . The eruption broke out on 

 the 23d of January. No earthquake was felt in any part of the island at the time, but dead 

 fish were noticed on the 21st and a few days afterwards, to the east of Molokai, and between 

 Molokai and Oahu. The fish gave no evidence of disease but seemed to have been par- 

 boiled. At Honolulu, two hundred miles from the eruption, the atmosphere was exceedingly 

 thick and hazy. So much was this the case that it caused considerable excitement, before 

 the news of the eruption arrived. 



" Rev. Mr. Lyons of Waimea states that on Sunday afternoon, January 23d, smoke was 



1 Sittiman's Journal, [n. 9.] vol. xxiii., p. 435. 



2 These masses were mostly composed of ferruginous oxides, as will be seen below. 



