Eruption of Loa iti i8Sj. 



165 



Mauna Loa in Eruption. — As in the eruption of 1S67 this eruption, coming 

 twenty years later, was ushered in with seismic disturbances. It was not the usual 

 "beacon light" on the summit that was the sole precursor of the outpouring of lava. 

 All through the previous December earthcjuakes had shaken all the southwestern 



portion of Hawaii without doing any damage of importance. They, however, 

 1887 constantly increased in frequency and force and averaged three a day by the 



twelfth of January. At Kahuku Mr. George Jones counted three hundred 

 and fourteen shocks between 2:12 A.M. of Januar}- 17th and 4 a.m. of the iSth; sixty- 









Fig. 96. SOURCE of the eruption of ii 



FURNEAUX. 



seven between that time and midnight, and three the following day, or three hundred 

 and eighty-three in all. In Hilea, ten miles west of Kahuku, Mr. Charles N. Spencer 

 reported six hundred and eighteen shocks between 2 A.M. of the i6th and 7 A.M. 

 of the iSth. 



With this great number of earthquakes, lava at last broke out on the summit of 

 Mauna Loa, three or four miles northeast from Mokuaweoweo, near the lateral cone 

 Pohaku o Hanalei (see note on p. 143), on the night of the i6th, but this discharge 

 ceased after a few hours. It is noteworthy that this outbreak was on the side of the 

 great summit crater most distant from the region of seismic disturbance and where the 

 eruption finally broke out. [5431 



