J. D. Dana — History of Changes in Mt. Loa Craters. 171 



range," as I call it in my Expedition Report, includes north- 

 eastern Oaliu, eastern Molokai, eastern and western Maui, 

 and, on Hawaii, Kohala and Kea; the southern or "Loa 

 range" comprises southwestern Oahu, western Molokai, Lanai, 

 Kahoolawe, Mt. Hualalai and Mt. Loa, " with Lua Pele [or 

 Kilauea] on the flanks of Mt. Loa." The Loa and Kea 

 ranges have a mean trend of about S. 60° E. To the 

 eastward the line of each range inclines increasingly to the 

 southward. The northern, in its course from Maui through 

 Kohala to the summit of Kea, becomes S. 45° E. in trend ; and 

 the southern from Kahoolawe to Hualalai and the summit of 

 Mt. Loa has nearly the same course. 



Now the line of the northern or Kea range, if continued on 

 with only a little more southing, strikes Kilauea ; while that of 

 the southern points southward far away from it. Kilauea ap- 

 pears, therefore, to belong to the Kea or northern range and 

 not to the Loa or southern ; and if so, it is not an appendage 

 to the latter, or to Mt. Loa, one of its volcanoes. 



There is seemingly a "clincher" to this argument. The 

 great craters are generally situated over the intersection of two 

 fissures, one of which is the course of the range of islands and 

 the other transverse to it, as stated by Mr. J. M. Alexander.* 

 Now the line of the Kea range strikes Kilauea very nearly at 

 right angles to its longer diameter in accordance with this rule. 

 Further, the line of the Loa range, or better a line from the 

 summit of Hualalai, strikes Mt. Loa precisely in the same way. 

 This coincidence, which the map well shows, seems therefore to 

 prove that Kilauea belongs to the Kea range and not to the 

 Loa. The substitution of a line from Hualalai for that from 

 Kahoolawe is reasonable, because the fissures over which the 

 Hawaiian volcanoes were formed were probably independent 

 for each island, though conforming to the general system. The 

 summits of Kea and Loa are corresponding points in the two 

 ranges, and Kilauea is an advance of one stage beyond Kea in 

 the Kea range ; it is owing to this that the longer diameters 

 of the Loa crater and Kilauea make an angle with one another 

 of about 32°. It is interesting to note, also, that the longer 

 diameter of the crater of Mt Loa, or especially its southern 

 half, points to the top of Mt. Kea ; and that a line from Loa to 

 Kea is nearly parallel to one between Hualalai and Kohala ; so 

 that the parallelogram enclosed has angles nearly of 70° and 

 110 o .f 



* This volume, page 38. 



f Mr. W. L. Green, in his "Vestiges of the Molten Globe." brings forward a 

 theory for the origin of the general features of the globe, which supposes its de- 

 formation from contraction ou cooling to have developed feature lines crossing at 

 angles of 60° — a " tetrahedral symmetry " — and, subordinate^ to these other 



