16 J. D. Dana — History of the Mt. Loa Summit Crater. 



The outbreak of Kilauea in 1832 occurred about the same 

 time, but possibly a few months later (xxxiii, 445, 1887 and 

 xxxv, 15, 1888). 



1834, January 29th. — Mr. David Douglas, the naturalist y 

 who was the first to ascend Mt. Loa, describes the crater, in 

 his Journal,* as having great chasms in the bottom that he 

 could not fathom " with a good glass and the air clear of 

 smoke :" and says further : that " the depth to the bottom on 

 the east side was by an accurate measurement with a pne and 

 plummet, 1270 feet ;" that the southern part of the crater, 

 " where the outlet of the lava had evidently been, must have 

 enjoyed a long period of repose." He mentions hearing light 

 hissing sounds from fissures in the summit that might " per- 

 haps be owing to some great internal fire escaping." He adds, 

 " There is little to arrest the eye of the naturalist over the 

 great portion of this huge dome, which is a gigantic mass of 

 slag, scoriae and ashes." 



1841, January. — Captain Wilkes was at the summit during 

 the latter part of January, 1841. f Lieutenant Eld, by taking 

 angles from the bottom of the crater, made the western wall 

 784 feet high, and the eastern, 470 feet. The only sign of 

 activity was the escape of steam and sulphur gases from many 

 deep fissures over the bottom, especially on the west side. 

 The fissures had generally a E.N.E-S.S.W. direction. There 

 was one cinder or scoria cone at the bottom, according to Dr. 

 Judd, toward the southWest side, having a height of about 

 200 feet. Other steam cracks were observed outside about the 

 pit crater of the south-southwest end ; and one, which they 

 " designated the great steam-crack, led from the top of the 

 mountain a long distance down its sides toward the south ;" 

 and a great depth was indicated by the reverberations from a 

 block of lava which was dropped into it. Small driblets of 

 lava were observed along some of these fissures ; indicating 

 feeble ejections at the very summit. In Wilkes's map, as 

 shown in the outline copy on the next page, seven small cones 

 are faintly represented on the bottom of the crater, although 

 the descriptions speak of only one. 



1843, January. — In January of 1843 began one of the great 

 outflows. It continued for about six weeks. Clouds above on 

 the 9th made the first announcement to the people of the 



* Companion of the Bot. Mag., ii, 175, 1836, and in a letter to Capt. Sabine, 

 dated May 3, 1834, Journ. Geogr. Soc, iv, 333, 1834. See this Jour., xxxiii, 436 r 

 437, 1887, on the letter to Dr. Hooker and the evidence against it. 



f Narrative of the Exped., iv, 152, 156,159. The descriptions of the crater 

 are from descents made into it by Dr. Judd of Honolulu (on p. 152) and Lieut. 

 Henry Eld (on p. 156). Wilkes's map has its longer diameter, through some 

 mistake, north-and-south in direction. 



