﻿636 DE. TEMPEST ANDERSON ON THE [Nov. I9IO, 



Then, again, there is the high temperature of the lavas and their 

 power of remelting, dissolving, and carrying away previously solidi- 

 fied lava, and even surrounding rocks. At Kilauea this has been 

 described by various' observers, and I myself saw the incandescent 

 molten lava in the ' working pit ' eating into the walls and forming 

 caves. Two of these, during my stay, undermined considerable 

 portions of the so-called ' black ledge,' that is the most recently 

 solidified portions of the lava-lake. The roofs of these fell in and 

 formed recesses scores of yards across, which really deserved the 

 name of bays. Prof. Daly, of the proposed observatory, told me 

 that there was a cave in the walls of the working crater above the 

 black ledge and pit evidently formed in the same way, and I saw 

 landslides which by all analogy had been due to the undermining 

 of the foot of the walls and their consequent subsidence. The 

 vertical or overhanging walls of this crater had apparently been 

 left standing in this manner. The exposed ends of the beds of 

 lava were quite sharp except in places low down, where they 

 showed signs of remelting, and there was no trace of ejected 

 material round the lip of the crater. The same reasoning would 

 apply to the landslides on the walls of the large encircling crater 

 near the Yolcano House, and even, I think, to the curious pit- 

 craters (so called) in the neighbourhood, such as Kilauea Iki and 

 several others. 



Matavanu supplies abundant evidence of the same action. It is 

 true that there is no old encircling crater with its landslides and sub- 

 sidences ; but the working crater has walls in many parts vertical 

 or overhanging, and cracks about the lip showed that portions 

 were ready to fall in, and rendered caution necessary in approaching 

 the edge. The strata in the walls in the upper parts, where not 

 obscured by recent lava-splashes, were broken off sharply like those 

 in Kilauea. Caves and tunnels were visible in the walls, and 

 especially the great tunnel at the western end appeared to be strictly 

 comparable to the caves in the black ledge of Kilauea, and not a 

 tunnel of outflow like that at the other end of the crater. Frozen 

 ledges on the wall indicated former ledges of lava like the black 

 ledge in Kilauea, and showed that the molten river was now 

 flowing out at a lower level than during an earlier phase of the 

 eruption. The mouth of the tunnel into which the lava flows on 

 leaving the crater appears to have undergone a corresponding lower- 

 ing. The crater- wall above it is much less regularly stratified than 

 the adjacent parts, and appears to consist of agglomerate, or perhaps 

 partly of material frozen on from below. I saw this process 

 going on in one of the caves of Kilauea, where stalactites 

 were forming from the roof. This may be the place from which 

 the great outburst of lava took place in February 1906 (see 

 map, p. 622). 



This brings us to one of the most curious apparent differences, 

 but perhaps real resemblances, between the two volcanoes. The 

 lava in Kilauea, as is well known, is in constant motion; and, at first 

 sight, it looks as if it were flowing out at one end of the crater. 

 This appearance is certainly deceptive : the direction of the flow and 



