380 W. T. BRIGHAM ON THE VOLCANIC PHENOMENA 



coast from Kawaihae to Kailua, a distance of fifteen miles, except where a few small streams 

 make their way to the surface near the shore and furnish water for kalo-ponds. The natives 

 live principally on fish, which are very abundant and good along the coast. The lava-flow 

 of 1859 has flowed out some distance beneath the sea on the coral-reef, and the same is true 

 of the flow of 1801 from Hualalai which filled up a large fish-pond and extended the coast 

 some distance. Beyond Kailua the shore-plain is very narrow, and the sides of Hualalai rise 

 steeply for several hundred feet to a plain of rich soil forming a belt a mile wide in some 

 places. Between Kailua and Kaawaloa the land is fertile and much cultivated, while high 

 up the mountain are extensive forests of koa and ohia. 



Having thus hastily sketched the general features of Hawaii along the shores, the moun- 

 tains next claim attention, and in describing these the author's notes of ascents of Hualalai 

 and Loa in 1864 will be chiefly used, while the accounts of several who have ascended 

 Kea in previous years, must be depended on for that mountain. 



Fig. 32- Outline of Hualalai from the plain on the south-east. 



Hualalai. — On Thursday afternoon, July 28, 1864, Mr. Horace Mann and myself, with a 

 guide, left Kaawaloa. Our way led at first through open pastures, then through tracts of tall 

 ferns, and finally we came to the forest, where the soil was black and muddy, and the bushes 

 so close as to almost prevent our passage in some places. Gigantic raspberries, with stems 

 two inches in diameter at the base and twenty feet long, hung across our path and often 

 scratched both ourselves and our horses in spite of our precautions. It rained hard, so that 

 we were quite wet, and the clouds prevented our seeing much on either side. After some 

 six miles of forest, we came upon a bed of a-a, fresh-looking and rough, and the trees were 

 thinner and smaller. We were now on a dismal, foggy plain of pahoehoe and gravelly sand, 

 where we could see but little out of our path. This was the elevated plain between the 

 three mountains, and being at least four thousand feet above the sea the atmosphere was 

 cold as well as damp. 



A leguminous-tree (Sophora ehrysophyUa) called by the natives Mamane, was common ; the 

 sandal-wood was seen here and there, but of small size, and the ohelo ( Vaccinium jjenduliftomm) 

 covered the ground thickly, and was loaded with its large red and purple berries. Twisted 

 lava streams, and masses of scoria? crossed our path, and so complicated were they that it 

 was almost impossible to trace their course. About sunset we came to the place our guide 

 had selected for our camp, and we soon had a fire at which we dried ourselves and roasted 

 some sweet potatoes, and as the rain had ceased, slept comfortably under some bushes. Our 

 water came from a curious pool in the last place one would think of looking for water, in 

 the midst of a horribly rough bed of scoria?, porous as pumice, and broken into irregular 

 masses of all sizes. The basin holds about twelve gallons of cold, pure water, and has no 

 evident inlet or outlet, yet is never exhausted ; we nearly emptied it, and the next morning 

 it was full again. It was found accidentally, and three columns of stone are piled up to 

 mark the place, which would be most difficult to find without these signals. 



At half-past five in the morning we started for the summit, toward which a good path 



