J. M. Alexander — Summit Crater of Mb. Loa in 1885. 37 



height of the summit, and also of an important land boundary 

 in the crater, viz : the corner where the four lands of Keauhou, 

 Kahuku, Kapapala and Kaohe meet, which is at the cone in 

 the central crater. 



During the next month I ascended the mountain again, this 

 time carrrying an excellent engineer's transit. In the clear 

 frosty air at the summit station I was able to take the bearings 

 of a dozen survey signals on the slopes and summit of Hualalai. 

 The new spherical signal which I had erected was afterwards ac- 

 curately determined by observations from more than twenty sta- 

 tions on Mauna Kea, Hualalai and in South Kona, and thus a 

 trigonometrical station was at last located on the very summit 

 of Mauna Loa. 



On the second day I descended into the central crater, and 

 found much of the bottom to consist of the most solid kind of 

 " pahoehoe ;" but in some large tracts the pahoehoe was cov- 

 ered with pumice, indicating the violence of the former surg- 

 ing and tossing of the lava. Just before reaching the cone we 

 came to a deeper basin (E) twenty or more feet below the rest 

 of the crater bottom and about 400 feet wide, covered with 

 the most friable lava, swollen upward as though raised by air 

 bubbles, and this basin extended into a lava flow (LL) north- 

 eastward along the side of the crater. Probably this was the 

 place of the last eruption and of most of the eruptions of this 

 central crater. The cone, 140 feet high, was composed of 

 pumice and' friable lava still hot and smoking. We ascended 

 it and set up a flag there for the boundary corner. 



I returned to the second plateau to the north (B), and 

 thence clambered out to the east of Mokuaweoweo by the 

 route of a former cataract of lava from the summit into the 

 crater, the black, shining spray of which lay spattered on the 

 surrounding rocks. Farther south there were the courses of 

 two other cataracts, which had poured directly into the central 

 crater. At the summit I found the deep fissure from which 

 these cataracts had been supplied with lava, and ascertained 

 that it had also poured an immense stream north upon the first 

 plateau and thence south into the central crater. Crossing 

 from this, place to the north over the first plateau I suddenly 

 came to a circular crater in the bed of the plateau (A 7 ), appar- 

 ently 600 feet deep and 1,000 feet wide, with a cone in its cen- 

 ter still smoking. The next clay we took the transit to the sta- 

 tions in the crater, and the following surveyed along the west- 

 ern brink to the extreme south end, where we looked into the 

 South Crater (D), which is about 800 feet deep and 2,500 feet 

 wide. The length of the whole chasm I ascertained to be 

 about 19,000 feet, the greatest breadth 9,000 feet, and the 

 greatest depth 800 feet ; and the area, three and six-tenths 



