On the Volcanic Character of the Island of Hawaii. 261 



weight, which appeared to have been thrown out in the vol- 

 canic eruptions. 



Within one hundred yards of the great crater, is another 

 of about half the size, called little Kirauea. " Its sides were 

 covered with trees and shrubs, but the bottom was filled with 

 lava, either fluid or scarcely cold, and probably supplied by 

 the great crater, as the trees, &c. on its sides, showed that it 

 had remained many years in a state of quiescence." It was 

 stated that there were many others in the neighbourhood. 



So hot are the ground and the air and vapours issuing from 

 it, that the natives formerly cooked by these means (and it 

 would have been considered as impious to do it by any other,) 

 the various sacrifices offered to Pele; and even food for or- 

 dinary purposes is always cooked here, simply by burying it 

 in the ground. This is done by the wood-cutters and by the 

 bird-catchers. 



Ascending a precipice of. 400 feet in elevation, the party 

 enjoyed an extensive view of this interesting country — of 

 Mouna Roa and Mouna Kea, in the distance ; and they could 

 with a glass discover on Mouna Roa " numerous extinguished 

 craters, .with brown and black streams of lava, over the whole 

 extent of its surface. The higher parts were totally destitute 

 of vegetation, though its foot was encircled, on the side nearest 

 to them, by trees and shrubs, which extended from its base 

 six or seven miles." 



Here they took their last view of the wide-stretched sunken 

 plain, with all its hills and banks of sulphur, its blazing craters, 

 and its igneous lake. 



" The uneven summits of the steep rocks, that, like a wall, 

 many miles in extent, surrounded the crater, and all its ap- 

 pendages, showed the original level of the country, or perhaps 

 marked the base of some lofty mountain, originally raised by 

 the accumulation of volcanic matter, whose bowels had been 

 consumed by fire, and whose sides had afterwards fallen into 

 the vast furnace, where, reduced a second time to a liquefied 

 state, they had again been vomited out on the adjacent plain." 



" But the magnificent fires of Kirauea, which they had 

 viewed with such admiration, appeared to dwindle into taper 

 glimmerings, when they contemplated the possible, not to say 

 probable, existence, of immense subterranean fires immedi- 

 ately beneath them. The whole island of Hawaii, covering a 

 space of 4000 square miles, from the summits of its lofty 

 mountains, perhaps 1500 or 1600 feet above the level of the 

 sea*, down to the beach that is washed by the rolling wave, is, 



according 



* Admitting that snow is permanent on mountains in the torrid zone, at 



the 



