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



New Lake was much of the time crusted over, showing fires 

 only at the edges ; break-ups, making cracks over the whole 

 surface, and followed by an engulfing of the numberless frag- 

 ments until " the whole was one glowing mass of lava," occurred 

 at intervals of forty minutes to two and a quarter hours ; but 

 thej^ were of short duration, and the lavas in the mean time 

 were " quite black and still." Now and then a fountain broke 

 out in the middle of the lake and boiled feebly for a few min- 

 utes ; then it became quiet, "but only to renew the operation at 

 some other point." The larger and more active lake, Hale- 

 ma'uma'u, half a mile off, was surrounded by a cone of loose 

 lava fragments, the lavas a hundred feet below the top. The 

 lake was to a considerable extent crusted over ; but there were 

 boiling fountains of liquid lava five to ten feet high (by esti- 

 mate) in play, changing their positions from one part of the lake 

 to another ; one dying out as another started up. Two masses of 

 solid lava were seen in the New Lake, looking as if formed in 

 it, which in the course of several days shifted their positions, 

 showing that they were floating islands. 



3. Eruption of '1886. — These conditions continued, though with 

 great variations, until March of 1886. On the 6th of that 

 month, both Halema'uma'u and the "New Lake," (See Plates I 

 and II, last volume), the latter five years old, were unusually 

 full and active, and mingled their floods in overflows. The 

 next morning, between 2 and 3 o'clock, the lavas disappeared and 

 left both basins empty — first, the shallower New Lake, and then 

 the Great Lake. The cone around the latter, then 200 feet in 

 height above the boiling surface, fell into the emptied basin, 

 and for days the down-plunge of the walls continued. The 

 emptied basin, according to the measurements reported by Mr. 

 Emerson, was about 2,500 feet in mean diameter, 560 feet in 

 depth at center, and 200 feet in the depth of the precipitous 

 sides except on the south. Mr. Emerson's map, Plate I of the 

 preceding volume, represents the basin in its condition of exhaus- 

 tion, and New Lake with its stranded floating island, stand- 

 ing 60 feet above its base. The map further shows, and also 

 Plate II, by Mr. Dodge, that the great central basin of Kilauea, 

 the lower pit of 1868, had been wholly obliterated, and all 

 signs of the old black ledge. The lavas in the later years had 

 swept over the whole surface, and placed Halema'uma'u at the 

 head of all the slopes of the bottom, both the northern and 

 the southern. The area around this lake-basin was left, as 

 the map of Mr. Emerson shows, 350 feet below the level of the 

 "Volcano House, the center of Kilauea 356 to 400 feet below, 

 and the bottom near the place of descent 450 to 485 feet. Mr. 

 Emerson remarks, moreover (and the map indicates the same), 

 that, with only a little more rise, the lavas of Halema'uma'u 

 would discharge over the top of the southwest wall of Kilauea. 



