J. D. Dana — History of the Changes in Kilauea. 83 



(1.) Changes in the Crater from 1841 to 1849. — The changes 

 after the year 1840 went forward in the usual quiet way, vary- 

 ing much from time to time, bat on the whole with some in- 

 crease in activity. In July, 1844, "the Rev. Mr. Coan was 

 near when the large lake overflowed its margin on every side, 

 spreading out into a vast sea of fire, filling the whole southern 

 part of the crater as far as the black ledge on either side, and 

 obliterating the outlines of the cauldron ;"* and this was an 

 example of what was often happening ; but sometimes more 

 extensively. Only two years afterward, in June of 1846, Mr. 

 Coan reportsf that "the repeated overflowings had elevated 

 the central parts of the crater 400 or 500 feet since 1840, so 

 that some points are now more elevated than the black ledge." 

 This last statement implies that in only six years, the lower pit, 

 nearly 400 feet deep in June of 1840, had been almost or quite 

 obliterated. However extravagant it may seem it was true. In 

 the course of the next month, July, Rev. Chester S. Lyman 

 (afterward Professor of Mechanics and Physics in the Sheffield 

 Scientific School of Yale University), visited the crater and 

 found it in the condition reported by Mr. Coan. The account 

 of his investigations which he published states^: that "the 

 whole interior of the pit had been filled up nearly to a level 

 with the black ledge, and in some places 50 to 100 feet above 

 it." Moreover, Mr. Lyman proved that the change was not a 

 change of level in the ledge, instead of the center of the pit, by 

 measuring a base and taking, with a quadrant, the altitude 

 above it of the high western wall, making it 680 feet, which 

 agrees very nearly with the result of Wilkes's measurement. 



Beyond all this, Mr. Lyman obtained full testimony as to 

 the way in which the rapid obliteration of the pit had gone forward. 

 He found that while the bottom of the pit was almost level 

 with the " black ledge," there was upon it, along the inner mar- 

 gin of the ledge, v "a continuous ridge more than a mile in length 

 consisting of angular blocks of compact lava, resembling the 

 debris at the foot of a range of trap or basalt," and that this 

 ridge had a height " on its outer or eastern face often of 50 or 

 100 feet [above the ledge], especially toward the south, part, 



against a survey. The crater Kilauea-iki is not named at all in "Wilkes's map, 

 unless " Lua-Pele " (a name of Kilauea) is intended for it. Mr. ¥m. T. Brigham, 

 on page 25 of this volume, expresses his confident opinion that the name Kilauea- 

 iki (Little Kilauea) has become fastened to the wrong one of the two eastern pit 

 craters. But it is used as here on the recent government maps, and was so used 

 by Ellis in the earliest account of the crater ; and it is the one of the two craters 

 that is large enough to be so contrasted with Kilauea. 



* My Expl. Exped. Report, p. 193. f Ibid. 



% This Journal, II, xii, 75, 1851. A letter from Mr. Lyman, dated Sandwich 

 Islands, July, 1 846, is referred to on page 193 of my Expedition Geological Report, 

 but no facts respecting the crater are there cited except the one that some parts 

 of the center stand 100 to 150 feet above the black ledge; I have no knowledge 

 of what it contained beyond this. 



