lyS Ktlauea and Manna Loa. 



The floating islands often seen on the Kilanea pools (see PI. LXII) are, in 

 my belief, the incipient central cones; their structure is identical, and so far as 

 can be learned, without following the process through long months on the spot, 

 the formative process is identical also. Is it necessarj^ to imagine some mj-sterious 

 "accensive force" pushing the crust up from below? Until we know the relative spe- 

 cific gravity of the cooled and hardened cellular crust and that of the compact molten 

 mass of the lake beneath we cannot answer. It is hard, often verj- hard, for a scientific 

 student to admit that he does not know, for his conscience tells him that he has not 

 yet exhausted all the means at his disposal to complete the analysis, but sixrely, if 

 anywhere, here in this mighty laboratory where God seems to be showing us His 

 most wonderful waj'S, man must confess without shame to his own ignorance and fail- 

 ure to comprehend. He can well give up the attempt to conceal his ignorance in 

 obscure phrases and pompous names. Giving a thing or a force a name does not 

 explain what it is. This does not mean that we are to quit trviug to learn, in oxir 

 despair at our present failure. I have believed, and the belief is greatly strengthened 

 at each succeeding visit to this volcano, that here is the place for a scientific exploration 

 of world-making ways, far more important than the belated explorations of the life of 

 the Pacific Islanders, either animal or vegetable, that nine scientific expeditions are 

 now conducting from a European base. 



I had seen the little mountain of lava that might have extended its edges until 

 the lake was sealed, a condition that might have been followed by another explosive 

 eruption like that of 1789. That would have been a simple result that could have been 

 easily understood, for the remains of the mountain would liave been scattered with noise 

 and commotion about the neighborhood. Nothing of the kind was here ; only a clean hole 

 half a mile across and five hundred feet deep left on the site of a hill two hundred feet 

 high surrounded by a lake of molten lava. The hill liad gone almost without notice, 

 only a slight jar — called by Mr. Mabj?, who, from his residence on the brink of Kilanea, 

 was familiar with such things, a slight earthquake. 



The pit was as Mr. Baker describes it in shape, but there was no smoke ; clear 

 hot air was rising from the bottom, but no part was obscured, only the shimmer showed 

 the presence of air above the normal temperature. In one small place not far below 

 the top, a little steam, not more than from one of the cracks near the Volcano Hou.se, 

 was visible. I looked for caves, tunnels, some sort or other of subterranean machinery, 

 but there was nothing but a clean hole closed at the bottom and without any suggestion 

 that it led anywhere. As I sat on the brink I noticed what must have escaped Mr. 

 Baker, the still red-hot lava in patches doubtless the overflows left when the rest of the 



lava descended. The color of the interior seemed strange, for there was not a sign of 



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