138 Kilanea and Matma Loa. 



beneath this new crust, turning it back like the lid of a box against the bank to which 

 it may be soldered \)y the molten spatters, or, as is more frequentl}' the case, the crust 

 is raised 01 masse and where it touches the superincumbent cliff, carries this up with 

 it and sometimes topples it over onto the outer part of the wall. In this waj-, I believe, 

 the cliffs seen in the sketch, and the whole bottom of Kilauea, nearly three miles in 

 diameter, have been floated up by degrees. If the action was constant the lava would 

 break out along the edges of the swelling plain, as indeed it does when the inflow of 

 lava is long continued, and the surface would become a general level by the accumula- 

 tion of the running lava in the lowest places. But in fact, after a certain amount of 

 lava has flowed up through the throats, whose position is marked b^' the surface lakes 

 just mentioned, — enough, it may be, to raise the cool but somewhat flexible crust a few 

 feet in the middle, — the supply ceases; the liquid which has permeated all the cracks 

 and fissures in the overlying crust as the lava on a larger scale injects dikes in the 

 earth's crust, cools and becomes solid, to be in turn 

 raised by a new influx of lava from beneath. Each 

 layer will be thicker near the .source and will thin 

 out as the distance therefrom increases, and this is 

 what the cracks and chasms in the dome show so 

 far as one can get into them. The successive layers fig- 81. diagram of elevation. 



are very unequal ; one not far, perhaps two hundred 



feet from the outer lake, was six feet thick and contained on a rough estimate ten 

 thousand cubic j'ards of vesicular lava; next to it was a layer not quite two feet thick 

 and diminishing at a distance of two hundred yards to less than half a foot. 



After examining Kilauea by daylight, I procured lanterns and returned to the 

 lakes about nightfall, traversing the bed of the crater while the daylight lasted. A guide 

 (so called) who was at the Volcano House, and who went with us that morning, refused 

 to descend after dark, and the hotel keeper ( Lentz) put every obstacle in our way ;'"'' but 

 I had often been there by night before, and my familiarity with the external action of 

 this volcano made it c[uite safe to pass over any part of the terrible waste in the flicker- 

 ing, lurid light of the earth-fires, as it is onlj- at night that the Halemaumau can be 

 seen in all its splendor. In some respects also it is a safer journey b}- night than by 

 day; for example, on our way down wc crossed a low dome which gave no signs of fire 

 except a clinking sound and a silent bluish vapor common enough in the vicinity of 

 the lakes ; the ground was .so hot, however, that we crossed it rapidly to save our shoes ; 

 on our return about midnight we found that our path had led over a mound wholly 



■'* / iiutilioii //lis /kiaiisr i/ is /lie on/y occasion in my many visi/s io /lie I 'o/caiio J/oiisc under many Jiffcrcn/ 

 /los/s. //ml I /lai'f no/ mc/ 7i'illi llir ii/inos/ courtesy and assislance. 



C516] 



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