24 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OF NATURAE SCIENCES. 



town of Lahaina, a seaport of considerable local commerce. Maui is 

 twenty miles in width and fifty miles in length, and, strictly described, 

 is really a union of two separate islands of nearly equal size with three 

 or four smaller islands — evidently offshoots — within a few miles. Here 

 the majestic, volcanic cone, Haleakala, ten thousand feet in height 

 and as clear-cut as if but lately made, is the leading feature. Although 

 a dozen or more of sub-volcanoes have had outbursts on its sides and 

 at its base, yet the symmetry of the original cone is unimpaired. Up 

 to, and including, this island, there are no active volcanoes ; and even 

 the traditions of the natives have no allusion to such disturbances. In 

 fact, it is decidedly questionable if human life could have existed on any 

 of the islands thus far spoken of until so long after all volcanic action 

 had ceased thereon that the lava had become sufficiently decomposed 

 by the influences of "climate and time" to have formed a soil sufficient 

 for a permanent growth of vegetation. 



Nearly one hundred miles from Maui, still south-east, is Hawaii, 

 the largest and, thus far, the final island of the group. Hawaii is 

 seventy-five to one hundred miles in diameter, very rocky and hilly, 

 and, until a few months, had the volcanic influences still active and 

 visible. On Hawaii are the old, extinct volcanoes, Hualalai, fourteen 

 thousand feet in height; Mauna Kea, sixteen thousand feet; and 

 Mauna Loa, seventeen thousand feet from the sea level to its summit. 

 These three are evidently of successive formation, and each is clearly 

 defined as if created in the present century. It may convey an idea of 

 the magnitude of one of these to state that the crater of Mauna Loa is 

 seven miles in diameter and one and a half miles in depth — large 

 enough to receive and conceal our Mt. Washington, if inverted, into 

 its cavity. No eruptions at either of these summits have occurred in 

 at least the past hundred years. The volcano of Kilauea, from which 

 all modern outbreaks have proceeded, is really a side issue of Mauna 

 Loa ;• and its crater, about one mile in diameter, is at an elevation of 

 nearly five thousand feet above the sea level. The lake of liquid lava 

 of which we read was about two thousand feet in diameter, and it was 

 from this source that all the eruptions of late years have proceeded. 



And now, having given a rough-drawn and non-scientific outline de- 

 scription of these islands, I come to the feature which induced this 

 writing. Several years previous to my visit in 1854, captains of vessels 

 had, on repeated occasions, reported having passed through waters in 

 violent agitation, in calm weather, and had suggested that this agitation 

 was caused by a sub-marine volcanic eruption, active at the bottom of 

 the sea; and each of these reports located the disturbance as being 



