584 W- T. BRIGHAM ON THE RECENT 



The route taken by this lava flow was substantially that of a stream of unknown date, 

 but whose smooth surface of hard pahoehoe looks fresh and undecomposed. Where this 

 ancient stream originated is not known, for no one has ever taken the trouble to trace up 

 the various flows which radiate like the spokes of a wheel from the cone of Mauna Loa. 

 The pali referred to was evidently formed by the subsidence of the ground over which the 

 successive streams of lava have flowed, and it forms the boundary of a fine pasture land, 

 which appears to have been exempt from these lava inundations for many ages ; the out- 

 cropping ledges of lava are weathered and lichen covered until they much resemble the 

 gneiss and granite rocks of New England, at least from a distance. 



The flow of 1840, which reached the sea at Nanawalie, formed conical hills which have 

 not wholly been washed away to this day, although composed of the loose gravelly rapilli 

 resulting from the sudden shivering of the lava, and the same form of cinder piles is seen 

 in the junction of lava and sea-water in this flow of 1868. It is not universally the case, 

 however, that lava is broken up in this way on pouring into the sea. Sometimes the heat 

 has been too intense to permit the actual contact of the water, and the melted rock has run 

 on under the sea, forming submarine ledges of pahoehoe. 



" From the shore we rode up on the elevated plateau with the two parallel streams of 

 cooled lava on our left, some five hundred feet below, with nothing to obstruct a full bird's- 

 eye view of the scene. At length we came to the great trunk at Kahuku, from which all 

 the lateral branches had been sent off At our right on one of these branches were the 

 ruins of the large stone church of Kahuku. The great earthquake had shaken down the 

 walls, and the roof was lowered and standing over the ruins, around which the sea of 

 molten lava had flowed, leaving them upon a small island unconsumed and uncovered. One 

 eighth of a mile above this, and on the same stream, we saw three small thatched houses 

 where four natives had been surrounded by the burning sea and confined for ten days in 

 this fiery prison. The whole inclosed island contained about an acre, and before the people 

 were aware of it, no avenue of escape was left. The hot clinkers came rolling along in a 

 great stream within twenty-five feet of one of the houses, and cooled in a ridge as high as the 

 top of the house. We climbed over this rough mass and visited the people who still live in 

 this once awful but now romantic inclosure. They seemed cheerful, and were right glad to 

 see us. On inquiring how they felt and how they spent their time during those days of 

 fiery trial, they replied that in expectation of certain death they were calm and resigned, 

 looking up to God and spending most of their time in prayer. 



" Passing up the main stream, we came to the place where Captain Brown's houses once 

 stood ; just in the rear of this was an awful vent from which fiery jets were thrown hun- 

 dreds of feet high, with fearful hissings and belchings. Beyond this we saw numbers of 

 green islets, of two to five acres in extent, formed by the surging sea of fire as it seethed 

 and boiled and swept around these reserved places. On some of these islands cattle were 

 feeding, and twenty head were taken from one islet of less than two acres, after the lavas 

 were partly cooled. They were terribly heated and frantic, and some of them died. Still 

 pursuing our course upward, we veered to the right, and once more took the soil on the up- 

 lands which bordered the stream. Here the great trunk of the stream was in its full breadth, 

 and here I hired two men to measure across, while we rode through a charred forest and 

 deep cinders more than one hundred feet above the shining lava-fields which lay on our left. 

 At length we descended again to the stream of fresh and warm pahoehoe, and rode nearly 



