ERUPTION OF THE HAWAIIAN VOLCANOES. 567 



eleven in all, washed away ; not a stick or stone of them left standing. Portions of the 

 wreck washed inland over the flat about eight hundred feet ; heavy ohia sticks and a large 

 spar were carried that distance. In some places the ground appeared to have sunk, and 

 the sea was flowing a fathom deep where houses formerly stood. Men who were at work 

 near the beach at the time of the shock (April 2), say that the walls of stone buildings were 

 thrown outward by the shock, which was so severe that they were themselves thrown off their 

 feet ; then the sea came pouring over the rocks which lined the shore, and they escaped 

 being overtaken, by the hardest kind of running. No one was hurt. A messenger from 

 Kilauea reports that hardly a sign of fire was to be seen in the crater. Got under way 

 and ran down to Punaluu. Monday, 6. Too rough to attempt a landing. The stone church 

 and all the other buildings near the sea gone. At Ninole but three houses were left. Smoke 

 or steam is issuing from the hills back of Hilea. Came to anchor at Kaalualu at noon. The 

 houses, wharf, etc., all gone here, and the rocks inland strewed with the wreck for a distance 

 of six or eight hundred feet. Dense clouds covered the summit of Mauna Loa, but no sign 

 of fire, and no reflection from Kilauea. Tuesday, 7. The deck covered this morning with 

 very fine ashes. Procured animals, and rode along the beach to the south point. The sea 

 had been inland in some places a hundred and fifty yards, and the whole coast was lined 

 with house timbers, lumber, broken canoes, dead animals, etc., that had drifted ashore. At 

 Halii found the body of a native woman, lying among the rocks, the right leg bitten off at 

 the knee, and the body otherwise horribly mutilated by the sharks. The shock of the 

 earthquake was evidently slight in this direction, for many of the stone pens were not 

 much damaged, and at Kalae, the extreme southerly point, there was no sign of any dis- 

 turbance. Weighed anchor at three p. m., and ran past Kalae. At six p. m., when the point 

 was about ten miles astern, bearing E. by S., a volume of smoke and flame shot up from the 

 mountain [Loa], in what appeared to be the neighborhood of Kahuku. The heavens were 

 lighted up at once, and the reflection extended rapidly in the direction of Waiohinu and 

 Kaalualu. After the first outburst we saw the fire but once or twice, and then it appeared 

 to be the grass burning on the edge of the cliff, which extends inland from the south point. 

 There was no flow of the lava over the cliff, nor toward Kona, and the stream probably 

 ran down on the Kahuku flat, or between there and Waiohinu to the neighborhood of the 

 Kaalualu landing. It reached the sea somewhere in that direction at nine and a half p. m., 

 when an immense body of steam at once arose, through which flashes resembling lightning 

 were constantly darting as long as we were in sight. The top of the mountain was con- 

 cealed by the dense clouds of smoke." 



From a schooner at anchor off Lanai the light of this lava stream was seen about mid- 

 night, over the mountain, while flashes like chain-lightning shot up into the clouds. From 

 Lahaina the same light was seen, and the next day a column of smoke in the same direction. 

 From Kona the light was first seen about eleven p. m. The Rev. S. E. Bishop, President of 

 Lahainaluna Seminary, on Maui, contributes the following observations : "During the night 

 of April 7th, a bright but varying crimson light over the volcano was visible from the Sem- 

 inary at the distance of one hundred and twenty statute miles, as measured on Wilkes' 

 chart. This light was a reflection from a mass of cumulus cloud through which vivid light- 

 ning was constantly darting. After daylight and through the morning of the 8th, this stu- 

 pendous column of cloud was visible pouring rapidly up to the ether, with ever varying 

 shape. It was usually well defined on the westward side, where it, at times, presented a 



