114 Kilmica and Maima Loa. 



fires of Mauiia Loa, and finding a fuller vent at Kahuku on the seventh of April. This is the theory, 

 and it is rendered probable by the great and constant trembling of the earth along that whole line, 

 by subterranean noises heard by the people of Kapapala, Keaiwa, Waiohinu, and other places, and 

 by the issuing of steam at several points from fissures along that line. 



When it was found that Kilaiiea had discharged its contents, the first suppo- 

 sition was that the course of the eruption of 1840, or towards the southeast, had been 

 followed, and this was strengthened b}' the report of fire seen at the bottom of some 

 of the numerous pit craters on that line; but while it is possible that lava may have 

 been injected in earthquake fissures opened in this direction even so far as the pit 

 craters (see map, p. 51), the probable path was that indicated by Mr. Coan, which is 

 apparently the same as that of the eruption 1823. When the Rev. William Ellis 

 went over the ground the next year he found deep fissures extending in a sotithwest 

 direction, some of them ten or twelve feet across, and emitting sulphurous vapors at a 

 high temperature.'*'' In one place where the chasm was about three feet wide, a large 

 quantit}^ of lava had been recently vomited. I do not agree with Mr. Coan that the 

 lava from Kilauea and that from Maitna Loa effected a juncture before reaching the 

 surface. It seems more probable that the former passed into the sea near Punaluti, as 

 did that of 1823, not appearing above ground except at Kapapala. The fact that the 

 openings on the side of Mauna Loa above Kahtikti were much higher than those men- 

 tioned at Kapapala, seems to indicate conclusively that the lava of Kilauea did not flow 

 out in the stream that deluged the height above Ka Lae. The lava of both these volcanic 

 vents is so similar that nothing can be inferred from that of its individual source. 



I/andslide. — Between Kapapala and Keaiwa in Kau, I examined what has incorrectly been 

 called the Mud Flow. I went entirely around it, and crossed it at its head and center, measuring 

 its length and breadth which I found were severally three miles long and half a mile wide. The 

 breadth at the head is about a mile, and the ground on the side-hill, where the cleavage took place, 

 is now a bold precipice sixtj- feet high. Below this line of fracture the superstrata of the earth, con- 

 sisting of soil, rocks, lavas, boulders, trees, roots, ferns and all tropical jungle, and water, slid and 

 rolled down an incline of some 20°, until the immense masses came to the brow of a precipice near 

 a thousand feet high, and here all j)lunged down an incline of 40° to 70° to the cultivated and in- 

 habited plains below. The momentum acquired Ijy this terrific slide was so great that the mass was 

 forced over the plain, and even up an angle of 1° 30', at the rate of more than a mile a minute. In its 

 cour.se it swept along enormous trees, and rocks from the size of a pebble to those weighing manj' 

 tons. Immense blocks of lava, some fresh as of yesterday, and others in all stages of decomposition, 

 were uncovered by the slide. The depth of the deposit ou the grass plains may average six feet : 

 in depressions at the foot of the precipice it may be thirty or even forty feet.'*^ 



Eruption in Kahuku. — F'rom the land-slide I went on to the igneous eruption in western 

 Kau. Rents, tiltings, and other disturbances of the strata were seen along the shore, while the 

 wooded and grassy hills on the right were scalped, scarred, cracked and striated, some of the once 



''Ellis's Polynesian Researches, London, 1.S59, vol. iv, p. 220. See also quotation on p. 39 of the present work. 

 "I have a map of the landslide constructed for me by the late I.atinier Coan. son of Rev. T. Coan, but it seemed 

 unnecessary to reproduce it here, the descriptions are so definite. 



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