Douglas First Ascends Manna Loa. 63 



We must retrace ovir steps to the first recorded eruption of Mauna Loa in 1832. 

 It is strange that no traditions of the natives point definitely to an^- previous one. 

 They might have seen the fires from the summit crater Mokuaweoweo, or even the fire 

 fountains from the cracks on the flanks, but even the hunters did not care to venture 



into the elevated waste where cold and winds and rain divided the realm with 

 1833 gods and wandering spirits of lower degree and even less morals. All that 



concerned the aborigines was the descent of a destroying lava stream into 

 their fertile fields or over the sand beaches and into the bays, so important to a fishing 

 population. The impelling spirit was always Pele, and from which of her many abodes 

 she came mattered little to these children of Nature. 



On June 20, 1832, Mauna Loa began to eject lava from the summit on several 

 sides, and continued three or four weeks, with such brilliancy as to be visible at 

 Lahaina, more than a hundred miles distant.^' As no one ascended the mountain it is 

 not known whether this eruption was from Mokuaweoweo or from some of the many 

 vents dotted over the broad flat summit. Through the summer earthquakes were 

 frequent on Hawaii, although not severe, and finalh' Kilauea burst into activitj- as 

 described in the account of that volcano (p. 46). 



After an interval of eleven years Mokuaweoweo again broke out. In 1837 

 Douglas made the first ascent of Loa by a foreigner (if not by any human being), and 

 unfortunately wrote a letter to Dr. Hooker of Kew, England, in which he gives a wild and 

 impossible account of the condition of the crater. In his journal, and in a later letter 



to Captain Sabine he gave a sane account of the crater which was quiescent .^^ 

 1843 He remarks that there was little in the upper part of the mountain to interest 



a naturalist. Mr. Douglas was all the time a botanist. The Wilkes expe- 

 dition made the ascent in January, 1841, and found no activity beyond a few steam 

 exhalations. Lieutenant Eld, by taking angles from the bottom of the crater, made 

 the western wall 784 feet high, and the eastern 470 feet. Dr. G. P. Judd accompanied 

 Eld in the descent into the crater. The accounts of the eruption of 1843 are as follows, 

 the first from Dr. Andrews in a letter dated February 6, 1843: 



Smoke was first seen near the summit of the niouiUaiii, on Monday, January gth. During 

 the succeeding night a brilliant light was emitted from the same spot. The great distance of the 

 mountain. from Hilo — about forty miles — prevented our seeing anything more than the intense glare 



*" Amer. Journ. Science, xxv, 199. 



*^Dana says in a note on page 59 of liis Characteristics of Volcanoes, in speaking of the letter to Dr. Hooker, 

 which caused an unjust doubt to fall on all his reports, "His words indicate a mixing up and magnifying of what he 

 had seen at the Kilauea and Mauna I/oa craters, which can be explained only on the ground of temporary hallucina- 

 tion. He may have dined that day with his friend the British consul. Mr. Douglas was an excellent Scotchman, 

 and all the rest of his writings are beyond questioning." The journal appeared in the Companion of the Botanical 

 Magazine, ii, 79-1S2, in 1836. In the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1S34, iv, 333, is an important letter 

 to Captain Sabine, and in the Magazine of Zoology and Botany, 1S37, i, 582, are extracts from his journal including 

 the letter to Dr. Hooker. [441] 



