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REMINISCENCES OF A VISIT TO THE VOLCANOES 

 OF HAWAII. 



By His Excellency, F. A. Weld, Esq., C.M.G., 

 President of the Society. 



[Read 12th Sep/emler, 1876.] 

 " et incedis per ignes 



Suppositos cineri rloloso." 



HoR., Carm. 1., lib. ii. 



Some time ago yovir Honorary Secretary expressed a wish that I 

 should read you a paper upon my visit to the volcanoes of the Sand- 

 wich Islands, and my ascent of Mauna Loa, " the great mountain," 

 during the eruption of 1855 ; and, desirous of doing anything 

 I can to meet the wishes of the Fellows of this Society, I promised 

 to do so. It is now my object to fulfil that promise to the best of 

 my ability, but you will forgive me if I present you with a simple 

 personal descriptive narrative, instead of a scientific disquisition 

 worthy of a place in the proceedings of this Society. 



It is a matter of regret to me that my journal written at the time 

 has been left in England, but I have used as a groundwork for the 

 more important part of this paper a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, 

 written by me at his request, and published in the proceedings of 

 the Royal Geological Society ; and though so many years have 

 elapsed since 1855, a recollection yet remains to me of my 

 journey up Mauna Loa, as vivid as if it were only yesterday that 

 I toiled over its wastes of lava and gazed into its seething craters 

 with eyes that could scarcely meet the glare. 



The Sandwich Islands, as you know, are a group in the North 

 Pacific Ocean, lying a little south of the tropic of Cancer, and between 

 longitude 155^ and IGO" west, and that one of them, to which I am 

 now about more particularly to direct your attention, is Hawaii, 

 called by Cook Owyhee, and is the island where that great navigator 

 and discoverer lost his life. It is stated that one of these islands 

 was first seen in 1542, by a navigator named Gaetano, of whom 

 I have been unable to learn any particulars, nor do I know ui')on 

 what authority the statement rests ; however that may be, Captain 

 Cook may fairly be said to have been their first discoverer in 1778, 

 in the sense of having first visited them. It is a curious circum- 

 stance that, as I was informed on the spot, at the time of his 

 arrival a native tradition existed to the etiect that " Lomo," the 

 god of fire, white skinned, and fair haired, had been driven from 

 then- island, Avith his followers, on account of some escapade and 

 indiscretion into which the natural fervour of his disposition had 

 led him. The tradition went on to say that he would one day return 

 across the sea to revisit his ancient abode. When the sails of Cook's 

 ships were seen rising like clouds above the blue waters of the 

 Pacific, and moving shorewards, a cry was raised that Lomo, the 

 fire god, was returning. Priests and people flocked to the beach, 

 and when they saw the strange appearance of the Englishmen, 

 their white faces, smoke issuing from their mouths — owing, no 

 doubt, to the use of that fragrant weed which is generally so dear 



