&S Kilaiiea and Mauna Loa. 



played over the whole surface at intervals, and I thought they were more frequent 

 after one of the periodical risings of the surface in the pit. 



In the morning we found it verj' misty, and the mist soon tiirned to rain, but 

 we went to the cone we had seen the evening before, and climbing its sides looked into 

 its red-hot mouth. It was nearly full of melted lava, but although we tossed in scoriae 

 we could not excite it. Another cone with several pinnacles called the "cathedral" we 

 did not visit, as no fire was visible, although smoke poured from it copiousl}'. The 

 rain caused steam to rise from the cracks over the whole surface of the crater, and we 

 got quite wet, and our views were wholly cut off. At half-past seven we were in the 

 saddle on the way to Hilo, which was only twenty-nine miles distant, but the road was 

 so rock^- in some places and so muddy in others that we were obliged to walk our 

 horses all the way, and it was twelve hours before we dismounted at the house of 

 the excellent missionary who has done more than all others to record the volcanic 

 phenomena which have taken place on Hawaii during his long and useful pastorate. 



August 2, 1865, I again visited Kilauea to make arrangements for a survey. 

 The appearance was much the same as last year, although the bottom had evidently 

 risen, and several new cracks had opened, while others had closed. The banks of 

 Halemaumau had changed considerablj^ ; the platform on which I had slept before 

 was gone, and the diameter was now at least a thousand feet. The islands had dis- 

 appeared, and the lava was not more than thirty feet below the top of the bank. We 

 went down in the crater in the evening, and fell asleep with the usual resolve to wake 

 up now and then to enjo^- the fireworks; but we were so wearj' with the tiresome ride 

 from Hilo, that we slept till after midnight, when a puff of sulphurous vapor from a 

 crack under our heads, waked us up choking, and we beat a hast}- retreat. In a few 

 minutes, however, the gas ceased to blow, and after enjoying the changing fire of the 

 pool for half an hour, we slept until five in the morning, when our guide advised us 

 to return, as we were to breakfast on the upper bank some three miles distant. We 

 went round by a new pool which had opened during the winter on the northern side 

 near the bank. It was small, hardly two hundred feet long and fifty wide, but the 

 melted lava was not more than a foot below the bank, so that we could work it with our 

 sticks. It was blood-colored and very viscid, and exhibited the same motions as the 

 larger pool, — the currents to the sides, and the cracking and bubbling, but on a much 

 smaller scale. Fire was visible at night at various points between this and Halemaumau. 



The next night I slept on the upper bank, in the grass house, while several of 



our party spent the night in the crater. They could not approach the place where we 



had slept the night before, owing to the change of wind, and during the night the whole 



[466] 



