Notes on Mauna Loa in July, 1888. 53 



seventy -five feet greater than that of the central crater. A 

 fresh-looking lava stream descended into it down the northern 

 wall, which may have been made in 1887. 



Mr. Baker, speaking of the source of the lava streams of the 

 great eruption of 1880-81, states that the two streams from 

 the source, the Kau or southern and the Hilo or eastern (see 

 map, Plate I, vol. xxxvi) originated together at the extremity 

 of a long fissure. This fissure follows the course of a " divide," 

 so that a small obstacle was sufficient to turn the flow to one 

 side or the other. The outflow took place on this divide ; a 

 northern stream flowed first, then the Kau stream, and then 

 the Hilo. The fissure ran by the north side of Red Hill, a 

 cone with a deep crater which is still giving out vapors, and 

 this hill was apparently the occasion of the turn off southward 

 of the Kau stream, it standing at the point of their divergence. 

 Water boiled near this hill at 196° F. This Kau stream is in 

 general aa, but near the source it is pahoehoe. At the upper 

 extremity of the fissure there is a pit crater, Pukauahi, which 

 is described as the source of the lavas and is still smoking. At 

 this place also water boiled at 196° F. 



On the route from Ainapo to the source of the outflow of 

 1852, the lavas of the 1852 stream, where they were first 

 reached, were of the aa kind ; but after awhile there was a 

 change to pahoehoe, and soon after this the source was reached 

 — a red cone in the midst of an extensive bed of pumice. 

 Long ditches or trenches occur in the surface of the region 

 which were evidently the beds of lava streams, their sides hav- 

 ing been the banks. The flow appears to have had a single 

 outlet. Water boiled at the source at 200° F. 



Going from Ainapo to the source of the eruption of 1887, 

 in Kahuku, about 6000 feet above the sea-level, Mr. Baker 

 passed through regions of woods and grass and saw seven run- 

 ning streams and three or four ponds of water. There had 

 been heavy rains. The fissure of 1887, about 400 feet above 

 the place of outflow, was still giving out vapors. No deep 

 crater marked the place of discharge. 



Over the wide region beween Mt. Loa and Mt. Hualalai it is 

 hard to tell where the slope of one ends and that of the 

 other begins. The 1859 flow of Mt. Loa as it came down 

 heading northwestward, turned just enough northward to fetch 

 by the northeastern flank of Hualalai. 



The Kau desert, lying to the south and southwest of Ki- 

 lauea, has a surface of whitish or light colored sand with areas 

 of pahoehoe lava, which is decomposing at places into a red- 

 dish soil. It is about eight miles by six in area. It is desti- 

 tute of vegetation and owes its dryness to its being under the 

 lee of Kilauea. 



