368 COSMOS. 



which has no opening that is to say, with basins of boiling 

 lava of from 30 to 200 feet in diameter only we must not 

 forget that the fiery gulfs on the slope of Stromboli throw 

 out ashes to a great height, and even pour out lava. Though 

 the great lava lake of Kilauea (the lower and secondary cra- 

 ter of the active volcano of Mouna Loa) sometimes threatens 

 to overflow its margin, yet it never actually runs over so as 

 to produce true streams of lava. These occur by currents 

 from below, through subterranean channels, and the forma- 

 tion of new eruptive openings at a distance of from 16 to 20 

 geographical miles, consequently at points very much lower 

 than the basin. After these eruptions, occasioned by the 

 pressure of the immense mass of lava in the basin of Kilauea, 

 the fluid surface sinks in the basin.* 



Of the two other high mountains of Hawaii, Mouna Kea 

 and Mouna Hualalai, the former is, according to Captain 

 Wilkes, 190 feet higher than Mouna Loa. It is a conical 

 mountain on whose summit there no longer exists any term- 

 inal crater, but only long extinct mounds of scoriae. Mouna 

 Hualalai* is fully 10,000 feet high, and is still burning. In 

 the year 1801 an eruption took place, during which the lava 

 reached the sea on the western side. It is to the three colos- 

 sal mountains of Loa, Kea, and Hualalai, which rose from 

 the bottom of the sea, that the island of Hawaii owes its 

 origin. In the accounts given of the numerous ascents of 

 Mouna Loa, among which that of the expedition of Captain 

 Wilkes was based on investigations of twenty-eight days' du- 

 ration, mention is made of falls of snow with a degree of cold 

 from 23 to 17J Fahr. above zero, and of single patches of 

 snow, which could be distinguished with the aid of the teles- 



* This remarkable sinking of the surface of the lava is confirmed 

 by the relations of numerous voyagers, from Ellis, Stewart, and Dong- 

 las to the meritorious Count Strzelecki, Wilkes's expedition and the 

 remarkably observant missionary Coan. During the great eruption of 

 June, 18-tO, the connection of the rise of the lava in the Kilauea with 

 the sudden inflammation of the crater of Arare, situated so far below 

 it, was most decidedly shown. The disappearance of the lava poured 

 forth from Arare, its renewed subterranean course, and final reappear- 

 ance in greater quantity, do not quite admit of an absolute conclusion 

 as to identity, because numerous lava-yielding longitudinal fissures 

 opened simultaneously below the line of the floor of the Kilauea basin. 

 It is likewise very worthy of observation, as bearing on the internal 

 constitution of this singular volcano of Hawaii, that in June, 1832, 

 both craters, that of the summit and that of Kilauea, poured out and 

 occasioned streams of lava, so that they were simultaneously active. 

 (Compare Dana, p. 184, 188, 193, and 196.) 



