GEOLOGY AND TOPOGRAPHY OP HAWAII. 99 



have been a stately island, like tliose of Uic inhabited fii'diip with wliidi we ;ire 

 familiar, tliiit throngh snl)mergence and erosion. li;is been reduced jilmost to sea- 

 level. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE INHABITED ISLANDS : A DESCRIPTION OF KALAi AND NlillAL^ 



Hawaii-nei: Position of the Inhabited Islands. 



The wonderful group of high, inhabited, volcanic islands over the forma- 

 tion, or at least the completion, of which the Hawaiians believed Pele presided, 

 consists of the islands of Hawaii, Kahoolawe, ]\Iani, Lanai, ]\[olokai, Oahn, Kauai 

 and Niihau, together with several smaller islands scattered about them. Taken 

 collectively they form the Hawaiian group as it is generally understood, or as 

 the natives expressed it, "Hawaii-nei," meaning all Hawaii. They are an- 

 chored far out in the middle of the north Pacific, under the Tropic of Cancer, and 

 extend in a northwesterly direction from Hawaii, the southern most, to Niihau, 

 a distance of about 400 miles. Honolulu, the capital and principal port of 

 the Territory of Hawaii, is located on Oahu. The position of the Territorial 

 observatory in the capitol grounds in Honolulu is in W. long. 157° 18' 0" 

 and N. lat. 21° 18' 02", and is at a point about fifty miles north and west of the 

 geographical center of the inhabited group. 



Like most volcanic islands, the Hawaiian Islands lie in a nion> or less 

 straight line; or to be more exact, in two nearly parallel lines, and ;ire sup- 

 posed by some to be superimposed over a great crack in the t)cean's floor, and 

 b}' others to rise from a submerged plateau. 



Looking more broadly at the gronp in its relation to \\w rest of the worhl. 

 we find the islands situated at the cross-roads of the Pacific Ocean, 21(»(i niih's 

 southwest from San Francisco and eleven days' journey by tlie fastest train and 

 ship, from New York. They are planted far out in the deep bine watei's of the 

 Pacific and are the most isolated islands in the world. It is twelve to eighteen 

 thousand feet down to the ocean's floor on all sides of the group, and, as h;is 

 already been said, it is believed that all of the islands are the exposed sum- 

 mits of gigantic mountains that rise more or less abruptly from the very bed 

 of the Pacific Ocean. 



This chain of fantastically sculptured Aolennie monnlain peaks, is inn(h' np 

 of fifteen great craters, of the first magnitude, all of wliieli ;it one time or another 

 have been active. All but three of them. howe\-ei'. have been dead and extinct 

 for centuries, perhaps thousands of centuries. Fortunately all thi-et' of the 

 active volcanoes are located on Hawaii, the southei-ninost. and undoiilitedly the 

 youngest island of the group. 



Since Honolulu is oi'dinai'ily the point of ai'i'ival and depai'ini'e foi' ti'ans- 

 Pacific steamers, as well as inter-island boats, it is well to make it the center 



