i88 Kilauea and Manna Loa. 



was formed, estimated to be about 1 25 feet long, twenty-five feet wide, aud rising ten to fifteen feet above 

 the surface of the lake. Shortly after another great fall took place, the rock plunging out of sight 

 beneath the fiery waves. Within a few moments, however, a portion of it, approximately thirty feet 

 in diameter, rose up to an elevation of from five to ten feet al)ove the surface of the lake, the molten 

 lava streaming off its surface, quickly cooling and looking like a great rose-colored robe, changing 

 to black. These two islands, in the course of an hour, floated out to the center and then to the 

 opposite bank. At eight in the evening they had changed their appearance but slightly. By the 

 next morning they had, however, disappeared. 



About noon the falling lava disclosed the fact that the small extension [New Lake] at the 

 right of the lake was only about eighty feet deep, and it was .soon left high and dry ; simply a great 

 shelf in the bank, high above the surface of the lake. As the lava fell, most of the surrounding banks 

 were .seen to be slightly overhanging, and as the lateral support of the molten lava was withdrawn, 

 great slices of the overhanging banks on all sides of the lake would suddenly split off and fall into the 

 lake beneath. As these falls took place the exposed surface, sometimes a hundred feet across and 

 upwards, would be left red-hot, the break having evident!}- taken place on the line of a heat-crack 

 which had extended down into the lake. 



About six o'clock the falling bank adjacent to the hill worked back into a territory which, 

 below fifty feet from the surface, was all hot and in a semi-molten condition. From six to eight 

 o'clock the entire face of this bluff some eight hundred feet in length and over two hundred feet in 

 height, was a shifting mass of color, varying from the intense light of molten lava to all the varying 

 shades of rose and red to black, as the different portions were successively exposed by a fall of rock 

 aud then cooled by exposure to the air. During this period the crash of the falling banks was in- 

 cessant. Sometimes a great mass would fall forward like a wall ; at others it would simply collapse 

 and slide down making red-hot fiery landslides; aud again enormous boulders, as big as a house, 

 singly and in groups, would leap from their fastenings and, all aglow, chase each other down and 

 leap far out into the lake. The awful grandeur and terrible magnificence of the scene at this stage 

 are indescribable. As night came on, and jet hotter recesses were uncovered, the molten lava which 

 remained in the many caverns leading off through the banks to other portions of the crater, began 

 to run back aud fall into the lake beneath, making fiery cascades down the sides of the bluff. There 

 were five such lava streams at one time. 



The light from the surface of the lake, the red-hot walls and the molten streams lighted up 

 the entire area, bringing out every detail with the utmost distinctness, and lighted up a tall column 

 of dust and smoke which arose straight up. During the entire period of the subsidence the lava 

 fountains upon the surface of the lake continued in action, precisely as though nothing unusual was 

 taking place. 



Although the action upon the face of the subsiding area was so terrific, that upon the portion 

 between the falling face and the outer line of fracture was so gradual that an active man could have 

 stood on almost any portion of it without injury. Enormous cracks, twentj' to thirtj- feet deep, and 

 from five to ten feet wide, opened in all directions upon its surface, aud the subsidence was more 

 rapid in some spots than in others, but in almost all cases the progre.«s of the action was gradual, 

 although the shattered and chaotic appearance of the rocks made it look as though nothing but a 

 tremendous convulsion could have brought it about. Another noticeable incident was the almost 

 entire absence of sulphurous vapors, no difficulty in breathing being experienced directl)' to leeward 

 of the lake. 



At nine o'clock the next morning the lake was found to have sunk some twent}^ feet more; 

 the banks at the right and left of the subsiding area, which had been the chief points of observation 

 the day before, had disappeared into the lake for distances varying from twenty-five to one hundred 

 feet back from the former edge, and the lower half of the debris slope had been swallowed up in the 

 lake, disclosing the original smooth black wall of the lake beneath at a considerable overhanging 



[566] 



