396 Wood — Effects in Mokuaweoweo of the Eruption of 191!^. 



The following account- of the action during the night of 

 Xovember 27-28, 1914, with the accompanying sketch map 

 (fig. 6), is germane to the matter under consideration : 



An ascent was made by two good observers, Messrs. Leslie Forrest and 

 L. C. Palmer, from Pahala on the evening of November 27, and tbey spent 

 the night on the edge of Mokuaweoweo southeast near the Wilkes station. 

 I am indebted to these gentlemen for the following description and the 

 accompanying plan. They reached the rim in the early evening, watched 

 the fountains off and on all night, and returned down the mountain next 

 morning. The activity was confined to the main central basin of Mokua- 

 weoweo, where an elongate area of new lava overspread the middle part of 

 the floor in a northeast-southwest direction and seemed to overlap the north- 

 ern lunate platform of the Alexander map. Mr. Palmer did not see the 

 remnant of that platform at all. This new lava was an elongate fountaining 

 pool at the south, and apparently overflows on the floor at the west and 

 north. 



There were eight main fountains, mostly playing continuously, the south- 

 ernmost a tremendous sheet fountain, estimated 150 feet wide, apparently 

 playing above a north-south crack which determined its elongate character. 

 As seen from the east it varied in width (length) like a flickering flame on a 

 ragged, flat lamp wick, but played continuously to heights estimated 

 between 300 and 400 feet. The height was estimated by comparison with the 

 west wail behind it. 



The other fountains were lower, forty to fifty feet high, the southern ones 

 having in part the character of shore jets working in grottoes. Several 

 mounds had been built up by spatter, and some of the fountains were con- 

 cealed behind these mounds, or possibly within them. 



At F2 (see diagram) was a spasmodic fountain which erupted at varying 

 intervals, sometimes ten minutes, sometimes an hour or more, resembling a 

 fiery flower pot, and shooting up to heights estimated at 200 feet. 



The new lava flows glowed from time to time, especially between two and 

 four a. m. November 28, when there was general recrudescence. There was 

 white vapor on the south lunate platform and all around the northern end 

 of the lava field. In the greater fountains the lava jets reached the curved 

 upper limits of their trajectories, still red and blackeued in their downward 

 course. 



The following is the text of Mr. Palmer's description of the sketch-map : 



"If the southern platform is 550 feet down (Alexander), the lake of lava 

 must have been about 600 feet below the top of the mountain. Circles are 

 fountains (F). 'M' are mounds with fountains back of them or else cones 

 with fire coming through them. (Mr. Palmer identified no definite flames.) 

 I could not tell at night, and by morning there did not seem to be any lava 

 coming over them at all. 



'• Fl is a large fountain, varying in width, as it sometimes included a 

 small fountain to the south ; about 150 feet was the average width, but that 

 is only a guess. The great fountain played continuously about half the 

 height of the west wall of the crater, sometimes higher, particularly between 

 two and four a. m., when it must have reached a height two-thirds or three- 

 quarters that of the west cliff. 



" F2 is a fountain which sent up a single column of lava at irregular inter- 

 vals, not as high as Fl. ' S ' is steam or vapor. Most of the night there 

 was black crust over most of the lava area, but towards morning, between 

 two and four, it disappeared, particularly in the northern part, where the 

 surface was all red for a while, but by daylight it looked black again. 

 Between the lake and the east wall (x) the lava was the same level as the 

 lake, but black, except that a little fire showed through at X." 



* Weekly Bulletin of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, ii, 31, pp. 166— 

 167, Honolulu, December 1914. T. A. Jaggar, Jr. 



