46 Kilauea and Marina Loa. 



than the bottom of the crater two years before. There were lakes boiling actively, 

 and "everj^ now and then sending forth a gust of vapor and smoke with great noise. 

 The natives remarked that after rising a little higher the lava will discharge itself, 



as formerly, toward the sea through some aperture underground." '^ In the 

 1829 earl}' part of October, 1829, the Rev. C. S. Stewart again visited the crater. 



He found the lower pit filled up more than two hundred feet; many of the 



cones had disappeared, and there was much more fire at the northern end. He thus 



describes two cones which he examined : 



They were iu the neighborhood of each other — each about twenty feet in height, not more 

 than sixty iu circumference at the base, and tapering ahnost to a point at the top — being in fact two 

 immense hollow columns formed by successive slight overflowings of lava, cooling as it rolled down, 

 into irregular flutiugs, ornamented with rude drops and pendants, and long tapering stalactites. 

 Though the ragings beneath must have been intense, from the tremendous roar within, the irresist- 

 ible force and deafening hiss with which the steam rushed from every opening, and from the flames 

 which flashed up, followed by lava white with an intensity of heat, still the incrustation of scoriae 

 immediately around seemed firm, and was less hot than in many other places; admitting not only 

 of our coming close to the sides of the cone, but also of clambering some feet up them, till we could 

 run our canes into the orifices at the top, and withdraw with their burning ends, red-hot lava, on 

 which we readily made impressions. Pele did not seem well pleased with this familiarity, however; 

 even the slightest touch with our sticks against the molten lava, produced an increased rush and 

 roar from below, with an angry spitting of the fiery matter high in the air around us." ^ 



Four years after, an eruption took place simultaneousl}' with one from the 

 summit of Manna Loa. Unfortunately we have no account from any eye-witness. 

 In September, 1832, the Rev. J. Goodrich visited Kilauea, and describes the appear- 

 ance of the emptied crater: "The lavas had previously risen fifty feet above the black 



ledge, but were now more than four hundred feet below this level and the 

 1833 action seemed confined to Halemaumau at the soiitli end. In January an 



earthquake had rent in twain the wall between Kilauea and Kilauea iki, the 

 large crater on the east, producing seams from a few inches to several 3'ards in width, 

 from which the region between the two craters was deluged with lava.'"' The out- 

 break on the wall was very remarkable, rising as it did in a strip of land four hundred 

 yards wide bounded by precipices on either side some two hundred feet high and appar- 

 ently as loose as a dry-laid wall. Before this time Kilauea iki had long been free from 

 lava visitations, and its sides were wooded to the bottom. The stream issued from 

 several rents south of the centre of the isthmus and above the lowest part, flowed 

 toward the north a few yards to the lowest part, and then divided and ran east and west 

 into the two craters in a shallow stream ; indeed the quantity of lava was so small, that 

 its eruption is hardl}- more important than the action of slender cones as described by 



^'Missionary Herald, vol. xxiii, p. 53. 



^••A Visit to the South .Seas, vol. ii, p. 93. 



"American Journal of Science (N. S. ), vol. xxv, p. igg. 



[424] 



