ee 
T. Coan on the Eruption at Hawaii. 243 
of about 4°, and the burning stream was urging its way along 
low. é: 
the rocky channel belo 
But the scene on the night of the 12th of February, was, in 
some respects, more gorgeous still, as it combined the element of 
water with that of fire. A stream of lava from 20 to 40 yards 
wide had followed the rocky and precipitous bed of a river, un- 
sunset. It was intensely active, and about’ to pour over a pre- 
cipice of 89 feet (by measurement,) into a basin of deep water, 
large enough to float a ship. Before dark, the lava began to fall 
into the water, first in great broken masses, like clots of blood ; 
of motion. The water boiled and raged with fearful vehemence, 
taising its domes and cones of ebullition ten feet high, and re- 
sa the red masses of fusion like a sea of fire mingled with 
The evaporation was rapid and sublime. From the whole sur- 
face of the basin, a vast irregular, column of vapor rose and 
rolled upward in fleecy wreaths, and hung in a gilded and glo- 
Tlous canopy over the dark forest and over the fiery abyss. Al 
hight long the scene was ever changing and yet unchanged. 
+he convolutions and gyrations were constant and inimitable. 
Sometimes the fleecy pular would roll up vertically, until it 
seemed to form an entablature for the great dome of heaven. 
Again, it would career off upon the winds, like a glorious 
‘axy, or break up in delicate tumuli to adorn the midnight 
sky. We encamped on the bank of the river, about fifty feet 
below the fiery cataract, and exactly opposite the basin of water 
mto which the lava was flowing, 20 feet only from its rim. 
| face of this precipice was an angle of about 80°, and the 
lava flowed down it briskly and continuously, in streams from 
‘one to four feet deep, during the night. Before morning this 
whole body of water, some 20 feet deep, was converted into 
steam, and the precipice became a gently inclined plane. Ina 
w hours more the action ceased at this point and it has not 
ween again renewed, 
_1 have seen continuous lava streams flow rapidly down: the 
Sides of the mountain from 10 to probably 50 feet deep. 
flows at an depth, or any angle, and at any rate of progress 
20 feet an Soe to 40 miles. : 
_, March 17.—The lava has made no progress towards us since 
the date of this letter. 
