

ii^CJ/ IA/^AX 



THE 



AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



Aet. XI. — History of the Changes in the Mt. Loa Craters ; by 

 James I). Dana. Part I, Kilauea. 



[Continued from page 451, vol. xxxiii.] 

 2. Kilauea from January 1840 to 3 868 inclusive. 



The history of Kilauea thus far presented sustains the state- 

 ment of my Expedition Report that three great eruptions 

 occurred in the seventeen and a half years between the early 

 part of 1823 and the summer of 1840, with intervals between 

 of eight to nine years. The history reviewed also indicates 

 that the method of change was, in a general way, alike for each 

 interval, from the emptied state of the pit to that of high-flood 

 level preparatory to discharge ; and alike in the down-plunge 

 of the floor consequent on the discharge. Further, the various 

 accounts agree in referring the filling of the pit to outflows of 

 lavas from lava-lakes, cones and fissures over the bottom of 

 the crater, and in mentioning no facts that point to other con- 

 curring means. 



During the following twenty-eight-year period, from 1840 to 

 1868, these several subjects received not only contributions of 

 new facts, but the most fundamental of them, on the method of 

 filling the pit, facts enough for a widened and apparently final 

 explanation. Even within the first .six years of the twenty-eight 

 the demonstration was made out, though not published until 

 1851. The only down-plunge of the floor in this period, pro- 

 ducing a lower pit, occurred at its close in 1868. 



Am. Jour. Sci.— Third Series, Vol. XXXIV, No. 200. — August, 1887. 

 6 



