EARTHQUAKES. 



269 



able. Kows of festooned vines, giving hopes only 

 last week of an abundant vintage of that delicious 

 wine called Lachrymse Christi, seem as if they had 

 been decorated for the tomb all are dead; while 

 underneath, just peeping above the bed of ashes, 

 are beans and peas, and all the great variety ot vege- 

 tables which abound in the Naples market, utterly 

 destroyed. The same scene of desolation extends 

 all round the mountain, and many thousands who 

 are grateful for the preservation of their lives and 

 homes are reduced to absolute want. We saw many 

 of these on the road or at the doors of their cottages, 

 imploring help and declaring now with more than 

 usual truthfulness that they were dying of hunger. 

 Such is the sad spectacle which this once rich and 

 lovely district presents as far as the bed of lava 

 which cuts off further progress. St. Ivrio, St. Gior- 

 gio, and Cremano, through which we passed, have 

 Lad a narrow escape indeed. It is a favorite place 

 of mlleggiatura for the Neapolitans, who have hand- 

 some villas there, and the lava-stream stopped 

 within half a mile of it. Judge what the apprehen- 

 sion of the inhabitants must have been when they 

 saw the river of fire coming down upon them and 

 heard the crackling of the scoriae as they rolled over 

 and over and looked on the shrubs _and trees writh- 

 ing in their agony ! On approaching the lava the 

 peasantry flock around us like loucsts, each offering 

 his services, and each anxious to earn a sous or two. 

 We take a man from Kesina, and under his guidance 

 we cross the first stream, burning hot to the feet, 

 and still emitting sulphurous cloudlets of smoke. 

 "The hot lava," says our guide, "is still running 

 down slowly underneath. I take up some pieces, 

 shining with all the colors of the rainbow ; but they 

 are too hot to hold, and I throw them down. This 

 was the stream which skirted St. Ivrio, and was flow- 

 ing down toward Barra. Standing in the middle, I 

 look up and down and see a mighty sheet covering 

 many acres of rich ground from which smoke is still 

 issuing from a hundred nay, a thousand fissures. 

 Like huge pieces of coke piled one on the other are 

 the component parts of that river. It has crossed 

 the high-road, on which we descend from our fiery 

 eminence very carefully, to the great relict of our 

 feet, and then, accompanied by a multitude of the 

 peasantry, we traverse the interval between this 

 sheet of lava and that which destroyed portions of 

 San Sebastiano and Massa. We climb up, as best we 

 can, over the scorice full twenty or thirty feet, until 

 we arrive at the summit of the stream nay, ocean. 

 I tread on fragments of houses, intermingled with 

 the scoriae gayly-painted fragments of houses not 

 long since the abodes of happy, thriving families. 

 How fiercely burns the lava beneath our feet ; how 

 the heat shimmers all around us ; and how insuffer- 

 ably strong is the sulphurous odor of the vapor ! It 

 takes a long time to walk across this fiery sheet be- 

 fore we arrive at Massa, where the same scene of de- 

 struction is repeated. A church has been miracu- 

 lously preserved here also, but all the houses near- 

 est to the lava have been thrown down, broken into 

 a hundred fragments, and intermingled with the 

 scorice. The squalid poverty of these two townships 

 it would be difficult to describe, for portions of each 

 remain. Some have lost their dwellings, many their 

 land ; all have lost their industrial occupation, and 

 the promised produce of the season. " No lives 

 were lost in San Sebastiano," says our guide, " and 

 only two in Massa, but full a hundred on various 

 parts of the mountain ; my eldest son was one. He 

 was at the Hermitage on Thursday night, when a 

 carriage with five persons drove up. He recom- 

 mended them not to proceed further, but they in- 

 sisted, and he was over-persuaded to accompany 

 them. All were lost." 



Eev. Titus Coan sends to the American 

 Journal of Science a graphic description of 

 the great outburst of Hauna Loa (Hawaii), 



on the night of the 10th of August, when a 

 grand and lofty pillar of light, supposed to 

 be 2,000 feet high, showed itself over the great 

 terminal crater. Mr. Coan says, under date 

 of August 27th : 



On the evening of the 13th we had the first perfect 

 view from Hilo. The illuminated cloud of steam 

 and gases, which hung over the crater, sometimes 

 rose in a well-defined vertical column to a great 

 height, and then the higher portion would expand, 

 forming an invejted cone ; again it seemed lighted 

 up above the mountain, and spread out like an um- 

 brella over the crater. The changes of form, the 

 expansion, contraction, and convolutions of the illu- 

 minated pile, could be distinctly marked, and also 

 the rapid variations in brilliancy dependent on the 

 greater or less intensity of the fiery lavas in the abyss 

 below. It is now seventeen days since we first saw 

 the eruption, and still the great furnace is in full 

 blast. The action is, evidently, intense. Of all the 

 demonstrations made in this vast caldron^on the 

 summit of the mountain since our residence in Hilo, 

 none have equalled this in magnitude, in vehemence, 

 and in duration. As yet it is confined to the deep 

 crater ; and we know not whether the terrific forces 

 now raging in this abyss will rend the walls of the 

 mountain, and let out a flow of lavas to the sea, or 

 spend their fury within the recesses of the moun- 

 tain. Ten thousand feet below the summit fires is 

 Kilauea. This crater has also been very active of 

 late. The south lake has long been filled, and it has 

 overflowed many times, sending off broad streams 

 of incandescent lava, filling up the great basin ^of 

 1868, elevating the southern portion of Kilauea, rais- 

 ing cones that puff and screech, and throw out vapor, 

 hot gases, and sulphur. The present activity looks 

 like some kind of sympathy with the summit fur- 

 nace. Along the shore, 4,000 feet below Kilauea, 

 there was, on the 23d instant, a tidal wave. It oc- 

 curred at 1 P. M. during a calm. The sea in our bay 

 rose silently and rapidly, like an incoming tide, to 

 the height of four feet two inches. In about six 

 minutes it had subsided to a low point, and had re- 

 turned again to the height of three feet. Quickly 

 and quietly it retired again; and thus in the space 

 of li hour it made fourteen oscillations, each suc- 

 ceeding one growing fainter, until the sea returned 

 to its normal condition. We had no earthquake at 

 the time. We have had occasional slight earthquakes 

 of late, but no severe ones. 



A correspondent of the Pacific Commercial 

 Advertiser, who ascended Mauna to the place 

 of eruption, thus describes the sight : 



Flowing down the sides of the symmetrical cone, 

 that the falling stream of lava was rapidly forming, 

 were many bright rivers of liquid light that, spread- 

 ing as they flowed away, and crossing and recrossing 

 in a tangle of bright lines, formed a lake of rivulets 

 that, ever widening, mingling, spreading, and inter- 

 lacing, presented a unique and beautiful appearance. 

 On the extreme right-hand verge of this lower basin, 

 detached pools of fire showed that, while a dark 

 crust was farming on the surface beneath, the entire 

 area of the basin was overflowed by the melted lava. 

 We watched steadily the grand fountain playing be- 

 fore us, and called frequently to each other to note 

 when some tall jet, rising far above the head of the 

 main stream, would carry with it immense masses 

 of white-hot glowing rock, which, as they fell and 

 struck upon the black surface of the cooling lava, 

 burst like meteors in a summer sky. As soon as we 

 had reached the summit level of the mountain, we 



in full view of the grand display, our ears were niled 

 with the mighty sound, as of a heavy surf booming 

 in upon a level shore, while ever and anon a mingled 



