54 Kilaiiea and Manna Loa. 



at Hilo. Through the directing hand of a kind Providence no lives were lost, and but little property 

 was consumed during this amazing flood of fiery ruin. 



During the progress of the descending stream, it would often fall into some fissure, and forcing 

 itself into apertures, and under massive rocks, and even hillocks and extended plats of ground, and 

 lifting them from their ancient beds, bear them with all their superincumbent mass of soil, trees, etc., 

 on its viscous and livid bosom, like a raft on the water. When the fused mass was sluggish, it had 

 a gorj' appearance like clotted blood, and when it was active, it resembled fresh and clotted blood 

 mingled and thrown into violent agitation. Sometimes the flowing lava would find a subterranean 

 gallery diverging at right angles from the main channel, and pressing into it would flow off unob- 

 served, till meeting with some obstruction in its dark pa.ssage, when, by its expansive force, it would 

 raise the crust of the earth into a dome-like hill of fifteen or twenty feet in height, and then bursting 

 this shell, pour itself out in a fiery torrent around. A man who was standing at a considerable dis- 

 tance from the main stream, and intensely gazing on the absorbing scene before him, found himself 

 suddenly raised to the height of fifteen or twenty feet above the common level around him, and he 

 had but just time to escape from his dangerous position, when the earth opened where he had stood, 

 and a stream of fire gushed out.'" 



The hill where the lava first appeared is called Arare, and is about six miles 

 from Kilatiea easterly in the dense forest. The natives say that the lava rose in this 

 crater abotit three hundred feet, and then sunk again when the fissure opened below, 

 and in 1865 at the time of the author's visit there were evident proofs of this on the 

 crater walls. The course of the stream seems to have led throtigh a high hill (seen in 

 the sketch of Makaopithi) thus just avoiding this large pit where it might be stipposed 

 the resistance would be least, but the hill was probably hollow, being a cone from 

 which the lava had been emptied, and the cavity beneath it perhaps exceeded in size 

 the pit crater. 



The elevation of the place where the lava finally reached the surface is given 

 by Wilkes at 1244 feet, and it is twentj'-seven miles from Kilauea, twent3'-one from 

 the first outbreak, and twelve from the shore at Nanawale. The sand-hills thrown up 

 at this place were found to be one hundred and fifty, and two hundred and fifty feet 

 high eight months after their formation, btit since then the sea has removed the whole 

 mass. Even in 1865 they were not a third of the measured height and nodules of 

 olivine were abundant in the sands of the beach at considerable distance. 



In November, 1840, when first visited by Professor Dana, the lava was still hot 

 in many places, a few feet below the surface. Small stilphtir banks, with deposits of 

 alum and other salts were met with in several places.^' 



The lava of this eruption is chrysolitic to a marked degree ; no such lava is 

 found in Kilauea at present ; stich lava has issued in several streams from Mauna Kea 

 in ancient times, also perhaps from Mauna Loa, if we suppose the large deposits of 

 this lava occasionally found along the coast near Hilo to have proceeded from this 



^"Missionary Herald, vol. xxxvii, p. 283. 



"Geology of the Unitefl States Exploring Expedition, p. 190. 



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