The Kilaiiea Record. 119 



In Jul}' of the next j-ear Mr. Coan was able to descend into the pit of Hale- 

 maumau and measure across the cooled surface which was then four hundred feet 

 below the rim. Its diameter was "five-sixths of a mile," and the Halemaumaii must 

 have been quiet, but by no means "dead," for in that condition volumes of smoke are 

 generally emitted from the pit (see Fig. 26), and now he could see lava in 

 1869 ebullition far below the surface, perhaps a hundred feet below, through some 

 of the man}- cracks in the hardened crust."" In 187 1 Halemaumau was full 



1872 to overflowing and the lava had run two miles northward over the crater 

 floor; the central depression was filled some lift}' feet from the same source. 



In August of the same year the pit was emptied of lava but still very hot and full 

 of dense vapors, but within a year (August, 1872) it was again overflowing into the 

 great central depression. 



March /, iSj2. Clarence King and Arnold Hague. — King reports: "A fluid stream 

 of basalt overflowed from the molten lake at the south end of the crater and flowed 

 northward along the level basaltic floor of the pit. Numerous little branchlets spurted 



from the sides of the flow and then congealed. I repeatedly broke these small 



branch streams and examined their section. In ever}' case the bottom of the flow was 

 thickly crowded with triclinic feldspars and augites; while the whole upper flow was 

 nearly pure isotropic and acid glass." 



October 21 ^ i8y2. D. H. Hitchcock. — "Halemaumau is like what it was from 1845 

 to 1868, an immense dome six hundred feet higher than the centre of the pit, equalling 

 in altitude the bordering black ledges. On its summit are two lakes from which lava 

 streams down in various dire(?lions. Nothing is left of the high banks surrounding 

 the old south lake." 



On March 3, 1873, Halemaumau was reported occupied by two lakes nearly 



circular.''' But in January, 1874, the surface of the great lake was thirty-five to forty 



feet below the rim and the two parts had become oblong, according to a visitor.'^' In 



June a more careful observer was at the crater, Mr. J. M. Lydgate, who 



1873 made a map of the place in which the pools were again distinctly circular as 

 is shown in the reproduction of Mr. Lydgate's map now among the archives 



of the Government Survey (Fig. 70). The central depression of 1868 is still distinct, 

 although partially filled. 



The Volcano House record, while containing much trash, certainly has also 

 on its pages much that should be preserved; much that is not elsewhere recorded. 



'"American Journal, 1879,11,454. lyctter of Aui;ust 30, 1871. 

 ''Chas. Nordhoff : Northern California, Oregon and the Sandwich Islands. 

 ''Miss I. h- Bird; The Hawaiian Archipelago, 55, 253. 



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