Ancient Walls of Kilauca. 



49 



barometric measurements at various points, making what seems to be Waldron's Ledge 

 six hundred feet above the boiling surface of lava, and its height above the sea 4100 feet. 

 He first notices the outer walls of the aiuicnf crater, calls the terraces around the pres- 

 ent crater vast platforms, and makes the highest point of these ancient walls (now 

 much interrupted) 5054 feet. In all the modern surveys of the crater these "ancient 

 walls" have been negledled, although the early visitors often refer to them, as Ellis 

 saw on one of them on the northeast of Kilauea the ruins of the lieiau dedicated to 



il^* 



Fig. 41. WALL ON THE NORTH OF KILAUEA IN 18.S9. 



Pele. The Count described six lakes of boiling lava, four of which were only three 

 or four feet above the general floor, the fifth forty feet, and the last one hundred and 

 fifty; this he calls Han fiiaii n/aii, which covered nearly a million square feet, while 

 the others he rates at twelve thousand square feet each. His statement that "the lava 

 sank and rose in all the lakes simultaneouslj'" is, considering the difference in level, 



very improbable, and in cases where there have been several lakes on nearly 

 1839 the same level no such phenomenon has been reported. 



Captain John Shepherd was at the crater September i6, 1839. On his way to 

 the great lake he passed several small lakes and cones, the latter twenty to thirty feet 

 high, from whence issued vapors and lava with loud detonations. He speaks of a lake 

 toward the cast side of the crater a mile long, and half as wide, within a wall a hundred 



Memoirs B, P. B. Mhsecm,. Vol. II. No. 4.-4. L4-7 J 



