68 Kilaitra and Manna Loa. 



from the crater, and it grew more and more abundant till we reached the cone, where 

 it covered the whole region to a depth of five or ten feet.'' 



All this time Kilauea was quiet and remained so all through 1854, but the next 

 3^ear the old activitv returned. Underneath the dome the lava was throwing up jets 

 to the height of perhaps two hundred feet; vents had opened around the edge of the 

 floor of the main crater, and Mr. Coan, in May and June, could count sixty lakes of 

 leaping lavas. There was one great pool in the northeast region near where 

 1855 the path meets the bottom, and other boiling cauldrons not far distant, so 

 that access to the crater was cut off.'" On July 6th Dr. Titus Munson Coan 

 was at the crater, and found this northeast pool crusted over except at the edge where 

 the lavas were splashing. Halemaumau was estimated to measure four hundred by 

 two hundred and fiftj' feet in its diameters, while the lava was seventy-five feet below 

 the rim. The walls of this pit were tufted with Pele's hair, and two islands were in 

 the northwest part of the lake. In October the crater was still active, but less so than 

 early in the summer. The dome over Halemaumau had fallen in. It is thought that 

 the lavas had passed out as at the last so-called eruption in 1S49. But there was more 

 important work going on in the Hawaiian lava ducts. 



In a letter dated September 27, 1855, Mr. Coan writes: "On the evening of the 

 eleventh of August, a small point glowing like Sirius, was seen at the height of twelve 

 thousand feet on the northwestern slope of Manna Loa. This radiant point rapidlv 

 expanded, throwing off corruscations of light, until it looked like a full-orbed sun."'' 



Sixtv-five davs later, the -fissure which permitted the escape of lava was still 

 open and in awful activity. The stream was flowing directly towards Hilo and there 

 were no valleys or ridges of sufficient size to turn its course. The inhabitants of this 

 beautiful village were exceedingly anxious, and made frequent excursions to the scene 

 of the lava-flow. On the second of October, Mr. Coan with a party of friends passed 

 through the thick forest, following the course of the Wailnku river, and on the fifth 

 reached the lava-stream early in the morning, at a narrow point where it was about 

 three miles wide. "In some places it spread out into wide lakes and seas, apparently 

 from five to eight miles broad, enclosing, as is usually the case, little islands not flooded 

 b}' the fusion." Mr. Coan continues in this letter, which is dated October 15, 1855:''* 



Early on Saturday, the 6th, we were ascending our rugged pathway, amidst steam and smoke 

 and heat which ahnost blinded and scathed us. At ten we came to open orifices down which we 

 looked into the fiery river which rushed furiousl\- beneath our feet. I'p to this we had come to no 

 open lake or stream of active fusion. We had seen in the night many lights, like street lamps, glow- 

 ing along the slope of the mountain at considerable distances from each other, while the stream made 



^'American Journal of Science, iSsj, xv. 63. "Ibid, xxi, 144. 



'^Ibid, KS56, xxi, 100, 139. ^'Ibid, ng. 



[446] 



