NOTES ON THE 1916 ERUPTION OF MAUN A LOA 333 



was obtained in the early morning hours of May 25, from 1:15 to 

 1 :45 a.m. In a lessening degree this glow was seen in the evenings 

 of May 25 and 26, and very faintly on the evenings of May 27 

 and 28. On the latter date it was near to the vanishing point. 



II 



The writer reached the front of the Honomalino branch of this 

 flow at about n :oo a.m., May 23, at a point about three miles, by 

 trail, above the road. Here the flow was of a-a, still advancing at 

 a slow rate of speed. This was difficult to estimate on account of 

 the irregular character of the ground and the brief time available 

 for watching. Though moving much more slowly than earlier, 

 the advance was still steady. Possibly the maximum forward 

 movement of any considerable section of the front was ten feet in 

 an hour. The average over the whole front was less, perhaps four 

 to five feet in an hour. At this front the flow was narrow, not 

 more than a quarter of a mile in width. The depth at the front 

 was variable, from six to ten or fifteen feet. Its surface, both on 

 the top and at the front and sides, was bristling with ragged points 

 and edges of brownish-black a-a. In this surface were innumerable 

 cracks, mouths, and ovens through which the red-hot matter shone 

 out. From many of these blue flames were flaring fitfully. 



According to the writer's observation, carefully concentrated on 

 this point, its mode of flow at this stage was as follows: 



At the front, between the top and bottom, there was a slow, 

 forward, bulging motion of the intermediate layer, from four to ten 

 feet thick. As this progressed it produced fragmentation of the 

 thick, stiffened surface over it, pulling and breaking this away from 

 its contiguous parts at the more slowly moving top and bottom, 

 and also breaking it up into an irregular mosaic with the changing 

 curvature of the surface of the front. At short intervals blocks of 

 the fragmented surface would be rotated into unbalanced positions, 

 when they would spall off from their own weight and drop to the 

 foot of the front, leaving for a moment bright, red-hot scars where 

 they had scaled away from the matrix within. Repeated examina- 

 tion of these scars showed continuous red-hot matter of very 

 viscous consistency, which cooled very quickly, tending only to 



