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[Vol. IX., No. 213 



began on the 18th, more than halfway down the 

 south-west flank, as above stated. It was ex- 

 tremely copious, rising in several large fountains 

 from one hundred to two hundred feet high, and 

 reached the sea in twenty-six hoius. The width 

 of the somewhat crooked and irregular stream 

 probably averages three-fourths of a mile, which 

 is about its width on the seashore. 



I was unable to reach the scene until Feb. 3, 

 when it had just ceased to flow, and there re- 

 mained only the hideous scoria embankment — 

 ' monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen 

 ademptum.' Until the previous night the foun- 

 tain had continued to be a powerfully brilliant 

 object, and the streaming lava conspicuous on the 



slopes. Spots of glowing cinder were still to be 

 seen on the front of the embankment, as our 

 steamer laid by for daylight. Our tourist crowd 

 of two hundred people landed in the morn- 

 ing. No difficulty was experienced in traversing 

 the many square miles of piled scoria in any 

 direction, except the incredible raggedness of the 

 surface. Occasional pits or rents disclosed the 

 fiery interior. The lava seemed to be of unusually 

 high specific gravity, judging by samples of wave- 

 assorted fragments on the many beaches in the 

 coves of the sea-front. The embankment seemed 

 to average about thirty feet in depth above the 

 old lava of the foot-plain of two miles, tumbling 

 over a low precipice of twenty feet, having filled 

 out from three hundred to five hundred feet into 

 water of thirty fathoms, along four thousand feet 

 of shore, making about thirty acres of new land. 

 No cinder-cones had been formed by the contact 

 with the sea on this occasion, although six or 



seven such stood in the immediate vicinity, one 

 having risen out of the sea at the flow of 1868, 

 and immediately been united by lava to the land. 



This new flow is almost exclusively aa, or 

 clinker. The neighboring flow of 1868, equally 

 sudden and copious, was pahoehoe, or smooth, 

 hummocky lava. The new flow appears to 

 abound in olivine. Unlike the eruption of 1868, 

 which was preceded by long-continued and de- 

 structive earthquakes, there was little premonition 

 this time, and no very serious damage was done 

 to the large sugar-mills a few miles distant, ex- 

 cept the rupture of one reservoir in the vicinity 

 of the mud-avalanche of 1868. In actual quantity 

 of lava emitted, the present is largely in excess of 

 the other. Experienced observers in Hilo are 

 confident that this is only a temporary intermis- 

 sion of flow, and that activity will speedily be re- 

 sumed, with probably a pahoehoe flow, such hav- 

 ing been the general history of previous large 

 eruptions, like those of 1881 and 1855. 



I desire to note particularly the presence of a 

 heavy stationary line of dark cloud, lying pre- 

 cisely over the line of the whole flow from the 

 sea to high up in the mountain. This cloud re- 

 mained without change of form or position during 

 the twenty hours of our presence in the vicinity, 

 and served to mark the position of ail parts of 

 the flow with great precision. Although a little 

 puffing of steam was rising along the sea, nothing 

 but dry heat ascended from any point inland, 

 save two very small columns of sulphurous smoke 

 four miles up. In walking over the flow, currents 

 of highly heated air had to be avoided, but no 

 steam was observed, nor smoke, nor troublesome 

 fumes of any sort. Yet a dense and massive 

 condensation of vapor was constantly going on 

 directly overhead. I judged the source of this 

 vapor to be solely and entirely from the inflowing 

 currents of air with their ordinary charge of 

 water-vapor. These were drawn in and driven 

 up from the immense heated surface, and, on 

 reaching the necessary height, precipitated their 

 contents into the dark cloud-bank, just as natu- 

 rally as the sea-breeze piles its clouds daily against 

 the mountain-flank all along that coast. It needs 

 to be understood that the evolution of heavy 

 cloud above lava is no positive proof that steam 

 is rising from that lava. The inflowing air-cur- 

 rents may supply all the vapor seen. 



A similar but smaller cloud-bank was seen 

 resting over Kilauea's fire-lakes as we steamed 

 past late that afternoon. On the early morning 

 of the eruption of 1868, I observed its glow from 

 the distance of 143 miles at Lahaina, and obtained 

 a good altitude of the enormous cumulus-cloud 

 of vapor rising from its heat With due correc- 



