J. S. Emerson — Some Characteristics of Kau. 431 



Art. XLI. — Some Characteristics of Kau i'^ bj J. S. Emerson. 



, Of the Hawaiian group of islands, Hawaii is the largest^ 

 the most lofty and the most recent. The fires of its volcanoes- 

 are still burning, and from time to time new material is poured 

 out over the surface of a land which is still in process of forma-* 

 tion. Here is the place to study Nature in her workshop and 

 see a world in making. But it is not of Hawaii as a whole 

 that we propose to speak. It is made up of districts with 

 characteristics marked and distinct from one another. 



The Hilo-Hamakua-E. Kohala district, occupying the north- 

 east side of the island, from Hilo Bay to Upolu Point, is the 

 land of gulches and streams of water, of disintegrated rock 

 and deep heavy soil. 



The W. Kohala-Kona-W. Kau district, occupying the west 

 side of the island from IJpola Point to South Cape, is the land 

 of slowly disintegrating rock, almost without gulches and 

 running streams. The extreme richness of its coffee lands i& 

 due to the fact that new soil is ever being formed, as wanted, 

 from the loose mass of aa rocks, which contains every element 

 needed for plant growth. 



Puna is the district where frequent showers fall upon loose 

 stone and sink out of sight, without forming gullies and 

 streams, and where vegetation thrives without soil. Here the 

 cocoanut tree grows in immense forests as nowhere else in this 

 group. 



Kaa is unique, a district by itself; ''^Kau ka maka lejoo "/ 

 Kau the dusty. That portion extending from South Cape to 

 and including Kapapala Panch, a distance of some thirty 

 miles, contains all the land of any value for grazing or agri- 

 culture. Briefly described, it is a wide expanse of compara- 

 tively modern lava, forming a floor of rock upon which is 

 spread a superficial covering of fine, light, reddish or yellowish 

 dust of varying depth. In places the ephemeral mountain 

 torrents have washed away this unstable soil and revealed the 

 bed rock beneath, which has scarcely yet begun to disintegrate 

 and ally itself with earth. This superficial coating of dust is 

 distinct from the rocky stratum on which it rests, as the dust 

 which the cleanly housewife removes is from the floor which 

 she has swept. And such dust as that of Kau is found in 

 quantity in no other district of these islands. In the olden 

 days the natives of this section, when engaging in the popular 

 pastime of lehe hawa^ jumping from a high bank, often sub- 

 stituted a bath of this dust for the usual pool of water. An 



* Read before the Social Science Association of Honolulu, Oct, 14, 1895. 



Am, Jour. Sci.— Fourth Series, Yol. XIY, No. 84. — December, 1902. 

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