510 W. T. Bvigham — Recent Eruption of Kilauea. 



crater of elliptical outline, 2500 by 3000 feet, the major axis 

 being nearly east and west. The walls were perpendicular 

 and quite impassable. The estimated depth was 500 feet. 

 There were many concentric and radial cracks making it dan- 

 gerous in many places to approach the edge. Almost all the 

 smoke proceeded from the hot upper crust of the border, none 

 came from the bottom ; and while every portion of the pit was 

 clearly seen, the heated air constantly rising from the border 

 made photographing a partial failure. Portions of the cracked 

 lips had sunk, leaving steps toward the pit. There was a com- 

 plete absence of any black in the walls or bottom ; all shades 

 of brown, red and yellow, but generally light : not in the least 

 dismal or fresh looking, except for size, it looked quite like 

 Mokuaweoweo, and might have been as old. The walls were 

 in remarkably even layers ; no cavities, dikes or great irregu- 

 larities were to be seen. It was a wall of masonry whose 

 cement time had crumbled, and it would hardly have seemed 

 out of place had some vine trailed its festoons down the 

 courses. The bottom was a confused mass of lava blocks of 

 the same color as the walls, and was deeper at the west side. 

 The impression was that the top of the peaks was there. 



Owing to the bad arrangements of the Inter-Island S. N. 

 Co. we were hurried away at daybreak the second morning, 

 and so had no opportunity to photograph from the western 

 wall, nor to take the desired measurements. The location is 

 however settled with sufficient accuracy as the whole area 

 covered by the last break-down and the pool to the eastward 

 as well. 



~No word could be heard of any surface flow " makcci " (sea- 

 ward) of the crater, but from the steamer as we left Punaluu 

 Saturday afternoon, a dense smoke was seen midway between 

 Kilauea and the sea, which might have been a forest fire, or an 

 outbreak. 



It is useless to speculate as to the return of the fires : the 

 present condition of the pit precludes any approach to them 

 were the bottom dotted with fire-pools. In 1886, the wall was 

 sloping on one side at least, affording access to the bottom. 

 Any earthquakes may however topple down enough of the 

 present wall to make a descent possible and the fires may be 

 visible in a week or not for months. In its present condition 

 Kilauea is most interesting to geologists, as in the walls of its 

 included pit is an epitome of the formation of the mountain 

 itself, a clean-cut section of 500 feet. 



