Eruption of Maiina Loa in 18^2. 67 



stationed the two carriers, gave an extra pair of strong shoes to my guide, gave him my wrapper and 

 blanket, put a few crackers and boiled eggs into my pockets, took my compass and staff, and said to 

 Mr. Salt Sea (Kekai), "Now go ahead, and let us warm ourselves tonight by that fire yonder." 

 Thus equipped we pressed up the mountain, over fields of indescribable roughness ; now mounting 

 a ridge of sharp and vitreous scoriae (aa), where the fiery pillar stood full in view, and then plung- 

 ing into some awful ravine or pit, from which we slowlj' emerged by crawling upon all fours. But 

 I soon found that my guide needed a leader. He was too slow. I therefore pressed ahead, leaving 

 him to get on as best he could. After half-past three p. m. I reached the awful crater and .=tood 

 alone in the light of its fires. It was a moment of unutterable interest. I seemed to be standing in 

 the presence and before the throne of the eternal God; and while all other voices were hushed, His 

 alone spake. I was ten thousand feet above the sea, in a vast solitude untrodden by the foot of man 

 or beast; amidst a silence unbroken bj' any living voice, and surrounded by scenes of terrific deso- 

 lation. Here I stood almost blinded by the insufferable brightness ; almost deafened by the startling 

 clangor; almost jietrified with the awful scene. The heat was so intense that the crater could not 

 be approached within forty or fifty yards on the windward side, and probabl)-, not within two miles 

 on the leeward. The eruption as before stated, commenced on the very summit of the mountain, 

 but it would seem that the lateral pressure of the embowelled lava was so great as to force itself out 

 at a weaker point in the side of the mountain ; at the same time cracking and rending the mountain 



all the way down from the summit to the place of ejection The eruption first issued from a 



depression in the mountain, but a rim of scorite two hundred feet in elevation had already been 

 formed around the orifice in the form of a hollow, truncated cone. This cone was about half a mile 



in circumference at its base, and the orifice at the top may be three hundred feet in diameter 



The eruptions were not intermittent but continuous. \'oluines of the fusion were constantl}' ascend- 

 ing and descentiiiig like ayV/ d'cait . The force which expelled these igneous columns from the orifice, 

 shivered them into millions of fragments of unequal size, some of which would be rising, some fall- 

 ing, some shooting off laterall\-, others describing graceful curves; some moving in tangents, and 

 some falling back in vertical lines into the mouth of the crater. During the night the scene sur- 

 passed all powers of description. Vast volumes of lava, at a white heat shot up continuous!}-. . . A large 

 fissure opening through the lower rim of the crater gave vent to the molten flood which constantly 

 poured out of the orifice and rolled down the mountain in a deep, broad river at the rate, probabl}', 

 of ten miles an hour. 



The stream .stopped about ten miles from Hilo beach ; the eruption lasted 

 twenty days. Early in March Messrs. H. Kinney- and Fuller made the ascent and 

 they confirm Mr. Coan's description of the terrific noise, but are inclined to enlarge 

 his estimates in some particulars. Mr. Kinney made the height of the jets four to ■ 

 eight htmdred feet: he noticed great whirlwinds about the jet, stalking like sentinels. 

 Mr. Fuller states'" that the diameter of the crater from which the jets played was 

 about a thotisand feet ; height of crater, a hundred to a htmdred and fifty feet ; height 

 of the jet, two to seven htmdred feet, and rarely below three hundred feet ; diameter of 

 the jet, one to three httndred feet, and rarely perhaps reaching four htmdred feet. 

 In Jttly Mr. Coan again ascended to the crater and fotmd no fire. He foitnd an unusual 

 stipplj^ of limu or basaltic pumice. He says in writing of this, "We found it ten miles 



*° American Junrnal of Science, 1S52, xiv, 258. L,etter dated Waioliinu, March 28. 



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