I04 Kilanea and Mauna Loa. 



houses formerl}' stood. Men who were at work uear the beach at the time of the shock (April 2), 

 say that the walls of stone buildings were thrown outward by the shock, which was so severe that 

 they were themselves thrown off their feet ; then the sea came pouring over the rocks which lined 

 the shore, and they escaped being overtaken by the hardest kind of running. No one was hurt. 

 A messenger from Kilauea reports that hardly a sign of fire was to be seen in the crater. Got under 

 way and ran down to Puualuu. Monday, 6. — Too rough to attempt a landing. The stone church 

 and all the other buildings near the sea gone. At Ninole but three houses were left. Smoke or 

 steam is issuing from the hills back of Hilea. Came to anchor at Kaalualu at noon. The houses, 

 wharf, etc., all gone here, and the rocks inland strewed with the wreck for a distance of six or eight 

 hundred feet. Dense clouds covered the summit of Mauna Loa, but no sign of fire, and no reflection 

 from Kilauea. Tuesday, 7. — The deck covered this morning with very fine ashes. Procured animals, 

 and rode along the beach to the south point. The sea had been inland in some places, a hundred 

 and fifty yards, and the whole coast was lined with house timbers, lumber, broken canoes, dead ani- 

 mals that had drifted ashore. At Halii found the body of a native woman lying among the rocks, 

 the right leg bitten off at the knee, and the body otherwise horribly mutilated by the sharks. The 

 shock of the earthquake was evidently slight in this direction, for many of the stone pens were not 

 much damaged, and at Kalae, the extreme southerly point, there was no sign of any disturbance. 

 Weighed anchor at three p.m., and ran past Kalae. At six p.m., when the point was about ten miles 

 astern, bearing E. by S., a volume of flame shot up from the mountain Loa, in what appeared to be 

 the neighborhood of Kahuku. The heavens were lighted up at once, and the reflection extended 

 rapidly in the direction of Waiohinu and Kaalualu. After the first outburst we saw the fire but once 

 or twice, and then it appeared to be the grass burning on the edge of the cliff which extends inland 

 from the south point. There was no flow of the lava over the cliff, nor toward Kona, and the stream 

 probably ran down on the Kahuku flat or between there and Waiohinu to the neighborhood of the 

 Kaalualu landing. It reached the sea somewhere in that direction at nine and a half p.m., when an 

 immense body of steam at once arose, through which flashes resembling lightning were constantly dart- 

 ing as long as we were in sight. The top of the mountain was concealed by the dense clouds of smoke. 



From a schooner at anchor off Lanai the light of this lava-stream was seen 

 about midnight, over the mountain, while flashes like chain-lightning shot up into 

 the clouds. From Lahaina the same light was seen, and the next day a column of 

 smoke in the same dire(5lion. From Kona the light was first seen about eleven p.m. 

 The Rev. S. E. Bishop, president of Lahainaluna Seminary on Maui, contributes the 

 following observations : 



During the night of April 7th a bright but varying crimson light over the volcano was visible 

 from the Seminary at the distance of one hundred and twenty statute miles as measured on Wilkes' 

 chart. This light was a reflection from a mass of cumulus cloud through which vivid lightning was 

 constantly darting. After daylight and through the morning of the 8th, this stupendous column of 

 cloud was visible pouring rapidly up to the ether, with ever varying shape. It was usually well de- 

 fined on the westward side, where it, at times, presented a perpendicular wall of miles in height. 

 On the east it was ill-defined. Above, it often spread out, especially toward the east, as if borne off 

 by the southeast wind of the upper air. The base, so far as visible, appeared to be commingled with 

 murky brown strata. The apparent altitude of this cumulus above the horizon, when at its highest 

 was 3°3o'- which reduced for a base of 120 miles with 500 feet altitude of the point of observation, 

 gives a height of 7.8 miles. This morning, the 9th, our atmosphere is charged with smoky haze, 

 and a very distinct odor of sulphurous acid. 



[482] 



