lO Beriiicc P. Bislw(' Museum — Bulletin 



If any one variety of soil has a specific power to produce malaria it does 

 not appear to exist at those islands. The upland soil is there formed of de- 

 composed lava, the lowland plains along the sea are constituted of a mixture of 

 alluvion washed from the mountains, and decomposed coral. Its immunity from 

 noxious exhalations is the same, whether parched with drought, or merely moist, 

 as when the evaporation is most abundant, after the rains. 



The habitations of the natives are for the most part considerably scattered, 

 but are in a few instances crowded together in such numbers as to exhibit the 

 dense appearance of our large towns and villages. There is, however, through- 

 out, an entire exemption from those pestiferous exhalations which, so extensively, 

 poison the atmosphere of populous places in hot climates. All animal and vege- 

 table substances thrown away by the people, or cast up by the sea, are quickly 

 devoured by the multitudes of starving dogs and swine, so that no detriment is 

 experienced from their putrefaction. 



With so entire an exemption from the existence of miasmata, there is also 

 an entire exemption from those affections induced by it. Malignant bilious 

 fevers do not occur, and as I shall, hereafter, have occasion more particularly to 

 state, derangements of the liver and biliary organs do not prevail, neither is the 

 stomach and intestinal canal, and other organs of the abdominal viscera subject 

 to the numerous and complicated affections so common in every miasmatic region. 



It .should be borne in mind, however, that Chapin wrote before the re- 

 lation of mosquitoes to malaria was known, and that probably these insects 

 had not become generally distributed in Hawaii at that date. 



Jarves' notes (23, p. 70) on the beginning of the silk industry in Ha- 

 waii are also of interest: 



In 18.36 Messrs. Ladd & Co. leased a portion of their land to Messrs. Peck 

 and Titcomb. for the purpose of cultivating the mulberry and raising silk. The; 

 have now upwards of forty thousand trees, which at nine months growth, are as 

 thrifty and forward as those of several years, in New England. As yet they 

 have been disappointed in obtaining the silk worm, but are daily expecting a 

 supply of eggs from China. 



The following (23, p. 75) gives some indications of the proportions of 



the new industry: 



At Mouna Silika, the mulberry-plantation, 85,200 of the black mulberry 

 (Morus multicaulis) have been planted, and the ground and slips prepared for 

 many more. Many thousands of the white mulberry (Morus alba) have also 

 been set out. The average age of 42,000 of the former is six months, and it is 

 computed that they will afford thirty and a half tons of leaves, sufficient to feed 

 1,200,000 worms. The leaves of one tree of eight months growth, weighed three 

 and a half pounds, and a leaf of three months growth measured seven inches in 

 length. The trees that were plucked, leaved out again in si.x weeks so fully, that 

 they could not be distinguished from those in the same row which were left 

 unplucked. They are planted in hedge rows, ten feet apart, and two feet separate 

 in the row. The silkworm of the white species, which produces the finest silk, 

 has been received from China, but the proprietors do not intend to raise them 

 in numbers until the plantation is thoroughly stocked with trees, and the neces- 

 sary arrangements for buildings, machinery, reeling, etc., be made in the United 

 States, which one of the proprietors, Mr. Peck, is upon the point of visiting, for 

 that purpose. If the natives can be taught the art of reeling silk, this branch of 

 industry will be of infinite benefit to them, as the raising of cocoons is attended 

 with so little expense and trouble. Women and children are particularly adapted 

 to it, as well as old and infirm persons. Thus it will afford occupation to many 

 who are incapacitated from entering into any laborious trade. The amount of 

 land in the plantation is l)etween three and four hundred acres, undulating 

 partly w'ooded, and well watered. 



