W. T. Brigham — Kilauea in 1880. 25 



West of the crater on the Kau road, in the region called 

 Umekahuna, are many small cracks which indicate plainly a 

 general and extensive subsidence. Farther to the southwest 

 was a long line of smoke or vapor extending, it may be, to Po- 

 nahohoa, where Rev. William Ellis found* marks of a recent 

 outflow in 1823. I had no time to follow the evident line of 

 fissure, and I am not informed that any one has been able to 

 do so since. In March, 1881, an eruption took place in the 

 lateral crater on the southeast side of Kilauea called on my 

 survey Kilauea iki, and properly so called, although popular 

 authority gives this name to Poli a Keawe, leaving this curious 

 pit nameless. The overflow was slight and filled the deep cra- 

 ter about seventy -five feet from the bottom, leaving a glisten- 

 ing, level surface marked with cracks. 



As the moon rose about midnight we started for the upper 

 bank and the Volcano House. The brilliant moonlight of the 

 tropics glittered on the metallic lava in cold contrast to the hot 

 fire-light we had just left, and as the shadow of the high ledge 

 fell across our path we had to walk warily and in single file to 

 avoid the cracks our feeble lantern hardly indicated. Once on 

 the path up the wall, we separated, and the most active got 

 home half an hour before the last of the party. 



On the 29th of July, having in the meantime made the ascent 

 of Mauna Loa, I returned to Kilauea. In the afternoon I went 

 to the Kau bank, and while Mr. Furneaux sketched Kilauea 

 from the West, I photographed the cliffs of Halemaumau, and 

 then descending two of the gravelly terraces which form the 

 border of the crater on this side, found myself on the brink of 



From Kau Bank — toward the East. 



a perpendicular cliff beneath which the lava was escaping from 

 several openings situated on the lower edge of the dome. The 

 action was curious, and although the heat was very great at 

 this height of nearly one hundred feet, I managed to watch and 

 sketch it for an hour. The noise here was peculiar ; for in addi- 

 tion to the clinking as of shivering glass, usually heard when 

 this black and glassy lava cools, and the puffing or blowing 

 common enough in the lava pools, there was a dull subterra- 

 nean rumbling as of heavy machinery moving beneath the 

 crater. It was the same noise I had heard during an earth- 



* A Tour through. Hawaii. London, 1827, p. 203. 



