94 Kilauea and Manila Loa. 



Pit Craters in Puna a Part of the Kilauea System. — A region that has 

 been the chosen path so often for the escape of the Kilanean lava, wonld natiirall}- 

 excite the strong interest of a geologist, but until within a few j-ears the whole district 

 was an almost impenetrable wilderness. The Rev. Titus Coan was the first who dis- 

 covered the craters on the line of the eruption of 1840. Dr. Charles Pickering extended 

 his explorations to a greater distance and mapped some of the larger craters, work after 

 adopted as official on the chart of this region published with the Wilkes report.''* In the 

 earlj' sixties the business of picking and packing pulu had become so important that 

 trails cut by the many natives thus employed, opened the crater country far more than 

 ever before, and at this time I was fortunate enough to go through the fern forests with 

 Father Coan, and although I liave been several times through the strange path of 

 Pele, cutting it here and there, I was more impressed with this first visit and will 

 transcribe from mv note book what I saw. 



Here and there on the way from the coast at Panau we passed lava streams. 

 Ohia trees were growing on these, thin and tall, suggestive of alpine regions; indeed 

 I have seen similar forests on the Swiss mountains, and there was a peculiar grace, 

 which, while pleasing the eye yet conveyed the idea of a struggle for existence amid 

 the storms which sweep the rocky slopes of ]\Iauna Loa. At the height of eighteen 

 hundred feet we entered the fern forest. The fruit of the poha {Pliysalis) and ohelo 

 ( ]'aLci)iiitiii) was abundant, and sandal-wood was occasionally met with at an elevation 

 of two thousand feet. As we came to the fern region, we turned into a path cut through 

 the jungle, and, as the soil was a soft black mould, it had been paved with the stems 

 of the tree-ferns about six inches in diameter. This "corduroy" road was constructed 

 with great labor by the natives, and we calculated that forty thousand pieces of fern 

 were used to build it. The ferns are cut in lengths of six feet, and many of them sprout 

 and make a green edging to the roadway. Nearly two miles along this tropical and 

 attrac^live road, and we came to a tract of pahoehoe where was the pulu station to which 

 the roads had been cut. This was the residence of a remarkable Hawaiian who had 

 leased the whole district for the pulu business, — Kaina, the district judge. His house 

 was directly on the line of craters, and only a few rods from steam cracks where his 

 men cooked their food. It was well built, and surrounded with a substantial stone wall. 

 The interior was furnislied with bedsteads, rocking-chairs, and other conveniences; 

 and our supper table was supplied with fresh wheaten bread, milk, butter, eggs and 

 delicious ohelo berries. 



West of the house was a large open field where the silky, golden fibre of the 

 pulu is dried before packing, and beyond in the woods, I found curious tubes of lava 



"See outline of this chart on page 51. The names given by Wilkes are not those at present used and have 

 been omitted. ' [47^] 



