192 Jaggar — Yolcanologic Investigations at Kilauea. 



The second type of flames is comparatively rare and is dis- 

 tinctly yellow in color like an ordinary coal-gas flame. I saw 

 this flrst in 1912, flaring out from an aperture in the tumbled 

 high east benches, far above the lake level, and lasting the 

 greater part of a minute. Twice in 1916 during the long ris- 

 ing spell of the summer, I saw a yellow flame suddenly burst 

 through the crusts of the lake, and then flitter a short distance 

 as a flaming foam or spume, dividing into several smaller flam- 

 ing masses before going out. The yellow flames, luminous 

 possibly with hydrocarbons or other impurities, are so rare in 

 the present epoch that they must be considered curiosities. 



On the other hand, the blue flames are very common and on 

 certain nights wdien streaming is slow and crusts are heavy, 

 they play in gigantic banners or blankets above blowing grot- 

 toes, or out horizontally from overhanging spatter margins of 

 the lake, under which the gas from beneath crusts is escaping 

 with a rush against the bank, and so is deflected outward. I 

 have seen such blankets of flame for a length of 20 feet (6 

 meters) of shore jetting over the lake surface out from the 

 shore for a distance of from 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4 meters), as 

 tliougli from a great flat-mouthed Eunsen burner. Frequently 

 such flaming orifices jet lava spray to great distances, and the 

 evidence of gas pressure is shown further by puffing noises and 

 ceaseless variation in the length of the flame banners. Ordinary 

 flames shoot up three to four feet (one meter) above the foun- 

 taining border grottoes (figs. 11:<2, 12d^ 11a, h). 



I am unable to agree with Mr. Ferret that visible flames 

 always occur above bursting dome-shaped fountains, which 

 break through the crusts in the middle region of the lake sur- 

 face (figs. 14a, 15^, IZb). I have stood on the spatter rampart 

 at the lake margin a few feet from such fountains, and have 

 watched and photographed fountains for years, and made 

 special efforts to photograph the flames with color screens (figs. 

 lYa, h, 13). My experience is that shooting blue flames break 

 out just as crusts part at the beginning of fountaining, but 

 that when the doming and spattering phases of large or small 

 fountains occur, a flare of flange sometimes is visible, but quite 

 often is not so. It does not seem probable that this observa- 

 tion is due merely to difl'erences of seeing, for the same fact is 

 in less measure true of the border fountains which sometimes 

 are without visible flames. The central fountains most addicted 

 to flaming are the continuous or "perpetual" kind (fig. 12). 

 I am inclined to attribute the absence of flames above some 

 fountains to the fact that the gases inflating them are more 

 completely oxidized than in the flaming cases. This would 

 of course mean that the combustible gases are variously oxi- 

 dized in depth. 



AVith reference to the composition of the gas burning in the 

 blue flames, as contrasted with that of those smaller bubblings 



