772 Transactions of the American Institute. 



west to southeast; second, tlie sudden, short, sharp jerking shock, 

 occupying hardly two seconds, and third, a thumping, like a boulder 

 of rock thrown suddenly against the crust of earth beneath you, and 

 as suddenly falling down. Each kind was frequently accompanied 

 with a rattling noise, like distant thunder or artillery, more or less 

 distinct. The lighter shocks generally had no accompanying noise. 

 "W"e experienced one of these thumping shocks while asleep near the 

 crater on the night of the 10th. It sounded precisely as if a cannon 

 ball had struck the floor under us, and then rolled along the verandah. 

 It started us out of a sound sleep. At Kau the motion was often 

 from south to north. 



Dr. "William Hillebrand visited the crater of Kilauea and the scene 

 of the mud flow, and has published a very interesting report of his 

 observations, from which the following extracts are taken. Many 

 persons in the United States have visited the island of Hawaii and 

 explored the crater of Kilauea. To such the localities named will 

 be familiar and the account full of interest : 



" The ground around the crater of Kilauea, particularly on the 

 eastern and western sides, is rent by a great number of fissures ; one 

 near the Puna road more than twelve feet wide and very deep. 

 Others of lesser size run parallel to and cross the Kau road so as to 

 render travel on it very dangerous. The look-out house is detached 

 fi-om the mainland by a very deep crevasse, and stands now on an 

 isolated, overhanging rock, which, at the next severe concussion, 

 must tumble into the pit below. Many smaller fissures are hidden 

 by grass and bushes, forming so many traps for the unwary. The 

 Yolcano House, however, has not suflered, nor is the ground surround- 

 ing it br(jken in the least. From the walls of Kilauea larrre masses 

 of rock have been detached and thrown down. On the west and north- 

 west side, where the fire had been most active befoi'e the great earth- 

 quake of April 2, the billing masses probably have been at once melted 

 by the lava and carried ofl' in its stream, for the walls there remain 

 as perpendicular as they were before ; but that this part of the wall 

 has lost portions of its mass is shown too evidently by the deep crev- 

 ices along the western edge just spoken of, and the partial detachment 

 in many places of large prisms of rock. But it is on the east and 

 northeast wall particularly that the character of tlie crater has under- 

 gone a change. Along the descent on the second ledge large masses 

 of rock, many more than one hundred tons in weight, obstruct the 

 path and form abutments to the stone pillars ; small buttress hiUs, 



