Oiitb)eak of 1868. loi 



of the lower walls a little steam floated up from tlie cracks below. No one has ascended 

 this mountain since our visit three years ago, but from the shores the glare of its 

 crater has been distinctly seen more than once in the interval. As it was winter, 

 and the snows and storms rendered the ascent dangerous, no one attempted it, and as 

 no lava stream flowed down, little attention was paid to these distant and temporary 

 volcanic displays. 



During the past uinetj^ years ten great eruptions have taken place on Hawaii, 

 averaging one for every nine years, the last occurring in 1859, when a large stream 

 of lava flowed from Mauna Loa some sixty miles into the sea. The lava had accumu- 

 lated in the reservoirs which supply this mountain and was ready to break forth. 

 To this brief statement of the condition of the Hawaiian volcanoes previous to the 

 present outbreak, may be added the fact that the season had been exceedingly rainy, 

 and the mountain streams were much higher than usual. 



March 27, 1868, about half-past five in the morning, persons on the whale ships 

 at anchor in the harbor of Kawaihae saw a dense cloud of smoke rise on the top of 

 Mauna Loa, in one massive pillar, to the height of sev^eral miles, lighted u]? brilliantly 

 b}' the glare from the crater Mokuaweoweo. In a few hours the smoke dispersed, and 

 at night no light was visible.^' 



About ten o'clock a.m. on the 28th (Saturday), a series of earthquakes began, 

 which has continued at intervals nearly eight months. The shocks commenced early 

 in the morning; the first was followed at an interval of an hour by a second, and then 

 by others at shorter intervals and with increasing violence, until at one o'clock p.m. a 

 very severe shock was felt all through the southwest part of the island. From this 

 time until the loth of April the earth was in an almost constant tremor. In the dis- 

 trict of Kona as many as fifty or sixty distinct shocks were counted in one day ; in 

 Kan over three hundred in the same time; while near Kilauea and about Kapapala it 

 was difficult to count them. It is said that during the early part of April two thou- 

 sand distinct shocks occurred in Kau, or an average of one hundred and forty or more 

 each da}'. The culminating shock occurred on Thursday, April 2d, at twenty minutes 

 before four in the afternoon. Every stone wall, almost every house, in Kau was over- 

 turned, and the whole was done in an instant. A gentleman riding found his horse 

 lying flat under him before he could think of the cause, and persons were thrown to 

 the ground in an equallj' unexpecfled manner. Mr. F. S. Lyman was at Keaiwa, near 

 the point where the motion was greatest, between that and the centre of vibration. 



"Rev. J. D. Paris writes from Kona, Hawaii, "In less than half an hour these columns of smoke had shot up 

 along the slope of the great mountain southward to the distance of ten or fifteen miles. We thought it was from a 



stream of lava but the clouds soon shut in the whole mountain, and nothing more was seen during the day 



During the whole night no light nor smoke were to be seen. All was clear and still as death." 



[479] 



