36 J. M. Alexander — Summit Crater of Mt. Loa in 1885. 



of craters and lava-flows that have some interest connected with 

 the study of volcanic phenomena. 



On the 1st of September, 1885, I set out in company with 

 Mr. J. S. Emerson, of the Hawaiian Government Survey, to 

 ascend the mountain from the table land east of Hualalai, along 

 the south side of the lava-flow of 1859. Our route led first 

 through a narrow belt of forest, consisting of mamane, ohia and 

 sandalwood trees ; then through a scanty vegetation of ohelos 

 and the beautiful Cyathodes Tameiameice, and at last beyond 

 the limits of vegetation, without a vestige of moss or lichen, 

 over a waste of " pahoehoe" lava, traversed by tracts of " aa" 

 and deep chasms. 



At about two-thirds of the distance toward the summit we 

 passed the ragged crater hill from whic'h the outbreak of 1859 

 had issued, and here our path was strewed with pumice and 

 "Pele's hair" from that eruption. An enormous quantity of 

 ]ava was poured forth from the small fissure of this crater, 

 forming a stream from half a mile to two miles wide, and 

 reaching nearly thirty miles to the ocean at Kiholo. Lower 

 down I counted eighteen species of ferns and a dozen kinds of 

 phenogamous plants already growing on this flow. 



Reaching the brink of the vast crater, we found that along it 

 were numerous deep fissures filled with ice and water, making 

 ready for avalanches into the crater. Here, and for a quarter of 

 a mile below, we observed many rocks of different % kind from 

 the surface lavas, solid, flinty fragments of apparently the 

 foundation walls, weighing from fifty ' pounds to a ton, which 

 had formerly been hurled out during eruptions. I noticed 

 similar rocks around the summit craters of Hualalai. 



At evening the fog lifted and gave us a glimpse into the 

 craters. The central crater (see Plate II) was surrounded by al- 

 most perpendicular walls, and had a pahoehoe floor streaked 

 with gray sulphur cracks, from hundreds of which there issued 

 columns of steam, and in the south end stood a still smoking 

 cone. South of this central crater, there was a high plateau 

 (C), and beyond this plateau, still farther south, an opening 

 into another crater small and deep (D). In the opposite direc- 

 tion, north of the central crater, appeared another higher cra- 

 ter, like an upper plateau (B) from which a torrent of lava had 

 once poured into the central crater, and north of this again 

 another crater (A), like a still higher plateau, from which also 

 lava had flowed southward. 



Thus it was evident, as appeared more clearly by subsequent 

 investigation, that Mokuaweoweo is not simply one crater, but 

 a series of four or five craters, the walls of which have broken 

 down, so that they have flowed into each other. 



We erected a survey signal for determining the location and 



