48 



Kilaura and Manna Loa. 



cinders and red-hot lava. Six small lakes were boiling violently, becoming crnsted 

 over, cracking, and again boiling. In the Halemauman was an island which the lava 

 was not seen to overflow ; the iirst notice of a phenomenon observed several times since. 

 The remarkable oscillations in the heat, remarked by all visitors, seem to have taken 

 place on this occasion with more than the usnal rapidity. As they were looking at 

 one of the lakes which was boiling violently, they sa}' : "After a few minntes the violent 

 struggle ceased, and the whole surface of the lake was changed to a black mass of 



\ V.v. 



Fig. 40. KILAIKA ACCORDING TO CArTAINS TARKER AND CHASK. DANA. 



scoriae; but the pause was only to reucAV its exertions; for, while they were gazing at 

 the change, suddenly the entire crust which had been formed, commenced cracking, and 

 the burning lava soon rolled across the lake, heaving the coating on its surface like 

 cakes of ice upon the ocean surge." As they left the crater, nearly a quarter of the 

 floor gave way, forming a vast pool of liquid lava.'^ 



Count Strzelecki was at Kilauea in the late summer of the same year and published 

 what seem to be his undigested observations in the Hawaiian Spectator (vol. i, p. 435 )'^, 

 but revised them in his work on New Zealand and Van Diemen's Land in 1845. He made 



°'Sinimau'.s Jouriml (N. S.), vol. xl, p. 117(1841). The plate accomp;iiiyiiig their description was redrawn from 

 their .sketches by a New Haven artist, and it is given in outline in Dana, Characteristics of Volcanoes, p. 60. The float- 

 ing island "heaved up and down in the liquid mass," and "rocked like a ship on a stormy .sea." 



"Reprinted in Thrum's Annual. [426 j 



