586 w - T - BRIGHAM ON THE RECENT 



[Poli-o-Keawe of the Map, PL XV.], and left a burning stratum upon the old deposits of 

 1832. The terrible rendings of April 2d tore up the earth, opened great fissures every- 

 where around Kilauea, sent down thundering avalanches of rocks from the high surround- 

 ing walls, and probably opened a subterranean passage for the igneous flood to the south- 

 west. That night Pele decamped in this underground passage, and the central area of the 

 great crater subsided about three hundred feet, leaving or rather forming a new ' Black 

 Ledge ' of unequal width, all around the crater. In some parts the central depression left 

 the ledge a perpendicular or beetling wall with a serrated line, but in most parts the centre 

 sagged away gently, forming a large concave basin with an angle of 20° to 70°. The sur- 

 face of this concave was once the crowning or convex central portion of the crater, where 

 ferns and ohelo bushes have been growing for nearly twenty years. This superincumbent 

 plateau has been depressed so quietly that the surface is very little disturbed, and the ferns 

 and bushes are still growing in the basin three hundred feet below their position on the first 

 of April. Some parts, however, of this great area have been covered with fresh lava, and 

 some ferns have been killed by heat and gases. 



"From the Black Ledge I passed down and across this depression (about a mile), and 

 then up the ascent on the other side for half a mile to the rim of Halemaumau. This is 

 all changed : it has gone down some five hundred feet below the highest point on the 

 Black Ledge, and about two hundred feet below the depression in the basin before men- 

 tioned. The walls have fallen on all sides, and the pit resembles a vast funnel, half a mile 

 in diameter at the top and about fifteen hundred feet across the bottom. There are two 

 places where visitors can descend into this great pit, with some difficulty and risk. Much 

 of the time, this pit is filled with smoke and sulphurous gases, with little visible fire ; occa- 

 sionally, however, explosions, detonations, and fiery demonstrations occur in this awful pit. 



" Our earthquakes still continue. Taking all parts of the island, they now average two 

 to three a day ; most of them are light. We have now had five months of constant dis- 

 turbance ; what will follow, is known only to ' Him in whose hand our breath is,' and who 

 rolls the wheels of universal nature. 



"On the 14th, 15th, and 16th of this month (August), the sea was agitated around our 

 entire group, rising and falling from two to four feet above and below the ordinary marks, 

 once in ten, fifteen, and twenty-five minutes ; the accounts of rise and time vary as noted 

 in different places by different observers, and I give the range. Not much damage was 

 done. A bridge over our Waiakea river was lifted and carried up stream a third of a mile 

 to the royal mullet pond ; dams were broken, and some boats set adrift and injured. The 

 influx of the sea on the 2d of April is accounted for by the terrible earthquakes, but the 

 late oscillations were not attended by any unusual disturbances on land. Were these rapid 

 and long-continued pulsations occasioned by submarine eruptions of our own or neighboring 

 volcanoes ? " 



The sea-waves of which Mr. Coan speaks were doubtless caused by the terrible earth- 

 quake which on the 13 th of August shook the whole western coast of South America, and 

 drove an oceanic wave to the shores of New Zealand and these islands. But although this 

 was decidedly a foreign volcanic or seismic demonstration, the vibrations of the land of 

 Hawaii have not ceased, and it is not at all improbable that the reservoirs of lava are 

 emptying themselves beneath the sea : certainly the lava is in motion, and I am strongly 

 inclined to the belief that all these shocks and tremors are due to the effect of heat passing 



