350 Volcanic Hruptions on Hawait. 
The two craters of Mount Loa are still active. The summit 
crater, called Mokua-weo-weo, measuring 13,000 and 8000 feet — 
in its diameters, has a depth of 784 feet along its western 
precipice. Kilauea, the crater of most renown, is marked by no 
conical elevation; and the declivities of the parent mountain 
hardly vary in this part froma plain. Like Mokua-weo-weo it 
is a pit-crater, with vertical sides of horizontally stratified basal- 
tic rock or lava. is 
The traveller first perceives his approach to the crater in a few 
small. clouds of steam rising from fissures not far from his 
path. While gazing for a second indication he stands unexpect- 
edly upon the brink of the pit. A vast amphitheatre seven miles 
and a half in circuit has opened to view. Beneath a gray rocky 
precipice of 650 feet, forming the bold contour, a narrow plain © 
hardened lava, (the ‘black ledge,’”’) extends like a vast gallery 
around the whole interior. Within this gallery, below another 
similar precipice of 340 feet, lies the bottom, a wide plain of bare 
rock more than two miles in length. os 
The eye naturally ranged over the whole area. for something 
place, excepting certain spots of a blood-red color which appeared 
be in constant yet gentle agitation. Instead of a sea of inolten 
lava ‘rolling to and fro its fiery surge and flaming billows,” we 
were surprised at the stillness of the scene. The incessant mo- 
tion in the blood-red pools was like that of a cauldron in constant 
ebullition. The lava in each boiled with such activity as to cause 
a rapid play of jets over its surface. One pool, the largest of the 
_three then in action, was afterwards ascertained by survey to 
measure one thousand five hundred feet in one diameter, and a 
thousand in the other: and this whole area, into which the Capi- 
tol grounds at Washington might be sunk entire, was boiling, as 
tom above, with nearly the mobility of water. Still all 
went on quietly. Not a whisper was heard from the fires be- 
low. White vapors rose in fleecy wreaths from the pools and 
numerous fissures, and above the large lake they collected into a 
broad canopy of clouds, not unlike the snowy heaps or cumull 
that lie near the horizon in a clear day, though changing more 
rapidly their fanciful shapes. On descending afterwards to the 
black ledge, at the verge of the lower pit, a half-smothered gurg- 
ling sound was all that could be heard from the pools of lava. 
Occasionally there was a report like musketry which died away, 
and left the same murmuring sound, the stifled mutterings of @ 
boiling fluid. : 3 . 
Such was the general appearance of Pélé’s pit in a day view, 
at the time it was visited by the author.* : ibe wescean 
* In November, 1840. 
Sen 
ee 
