Rev. E. P. Baker Ascends Loa. 171 



Mr. Baker, speaking of the source of the lava streams of the great eruption of 

 1 880- 1 88 1, states that: 



The two streams from the source, the Kau or southern, and the Hilo or eastern, originated 

 together at the extremity of a long fissure. This fissure follows the course of a "divide," so that a 

 small obstacle was sufficient to turn the flow to one side or the other. The outflow took place on 

 this divide; a northern stream flowed first, then the Kau stream, and then the Hilo. The fissure 

 ran by the north side of Red Hill, a cone with a deep crater which is still giving out vapors, and 

 this hill was apparently the occasion of the turn off southward of the Kau stream, it standing at the 

 point of their divergence.'-" Water boiled near this hill at 196° F. This Kau stream is in general 

 aa, but near the source it is pahoehoe. At the upper extremity of the fissure there is a pit crater, 

 Pukauahi, which is described as the source of the lavas and is still smoking. At this place also 

 water boiled at 196° F. 



On the route from Aiuapo to the source of the outflow of 1852, the lavas of the 1852 stream, 

 where they were first reached, were of the aa kind ; but after a while there was a change to pahoehoe, 

 and soon after this the source was reached — a red cone in the midst of an extensive bed of pumice. 

 Long ditches or trenches occur in the surface of the region which were evidently the beds of lava 

 streams, their sides having been the banks."' The flow appears to have had a single outlet. Water 

 boiled at the source at 200° F. 



Going from Ainapo to the source of the eruption of 1887, in Kahuku, about 6000 feet above 

 the sea-level, Mr. Baker passed through regions of woods and grass and saw seven running streams 

 and three or four ponds of water. There had been heavy rains. No deep crater marked the place 

 of discharge. 



Over the wide region between Mt. Loa and Mt. Hualalai it is hard to tell where the slope of 

 one ends and that of the other begins. [I have already made the same statement regarding the ap- 

 pearance from the other side.] The 1859 flow of Mt. Loa as it came down heading northwestward, 

 turned just enough northward to fetch by the northeastern flank of Hualalai. 



The Kau Desert, lying to the south and southwest of Kilauea, has a surface of whitish or 

 light colored sand with areas of pahoehoe lava, which is decomposing in places into a reddish soil. 

 It is about eight miles by six in area. It is destitute of vegetation and owes its dryness to its being 

 under the lee of Kilauea. 



To return to the Volcano House record : 



Aiigusl 20, iSSS. Earthquake at 7:30 a.m. 



November 8, t88S. Earthquake at 5:50 p.m. Quite a sharp shock felt all over Hawaii and 

 to Honolulu, according to Mr. H. M. Whitney. 



December I, 1888. H. M. Whitney. — Found Dana Lake and Little Elephant cone which is 

 three hundred yards north of the lake, very active. The vSouth Lake has disappeared altogether, 

 the crater is filled up with rocks and no signs of a pit or of fire remain in it. A flow of aa ran for 

 four days in Kilauea, according to L. A. Thurston. 



December 22, 1888. L. A. Thurston. — There are now two sluggish pahoehoe flows running 

 acro.ss the path to the Elephant; and on the south and west there are several flows still very hot. 

 There are about a dozen blow-holes in action besides the lake. There is very intense action in the 

 lake, the surface of which is twenty-five to thirty feet above the general surface of the crater 

 south of it, with a confining wall built by itself of only about five feet in thickness at the level of the 

 liquid lava on the southwest side ; and a thickness of not more than ten feet at a point ten feet below 



'-° It seems rather to have been formed b}' the flow. 

 '-'See Furiieaux' painting of the eruption of 1887, Fig. 97. 



[549] 



