446 SJ. D. Dana—LMistory of the Changes in Kilauea, 
Goodrich’s statement above cited, ‘“‘ the same depth as at first,” 
and the additional remark that the filling amounted to “about 
900 feet”; which statement would make the depth of the lower 
pit after the eruption of 1832 nearly 900 feet, and of the crater 
from top to bottom 1750 feet. This estimate of the original 
depth accords with his view in 1825 that the upper and lower 
walls were of nearly equal height, and that Lieut. Malden’s 
measurement was therefore good for both. There is no pub- 
lished account furnishing data for correcting this estimate. 
By letter from Mr. W. D. Alexander, Surveyor General of 
the Hawaiian Islands, dated March 2, 1887, I learn that his 
father, Rev. Wm. ©. Alexander (who arrived at the Sand- 
wich Islands in 1882) visited the crater on the 12th of 
January, 1833, four months after Mr. Goodrich’s visit, and 
in his private diary gives the depth of the crater as 2000 
feet. This tends to confirm Mr. Goodrich’s numbers, although 
only a rough estimate. He says nothing of any black ledge, 
except of that at the bottom of the ay 000 feet ; and this leads 
to the inference that the ledge was quite narrow, as in 1823. 
On the 22nd of January, 1834, Mr. David Douglas, of Scot- 
land (XI), made careful barometric measurements of the crater, 
(all the details of which, with the calculation, are given in his 
letter to Captain Sabine, 1X0). He obtained for the depth to 
the black ledge, on the highest northwest side, 715 feet; and 
to the bottom of the lower pit, 1,077 feet, (mean of two caleu- 
lations). This makes the depth of the lower pit at that date 
362 feet; in addition to which he says that there were 48 feet 
more to the surface of the liquid lavas. 
We thus know that the down-plunge was a fact; an using 
as evidence only the measurements of Mr. Douglas, and noting 
that they were made at least a yearand a half after the eruption, 
it was larger both as to depth and breadth than that of 1840. 
Hence the eruption of 1832—instead of being ‘‘a very small 
one, only remarkable from the fact that the fissure from which 
it emanated opens ata level of more than 400 feet above the 
present lava-lakes” with, ‘so far as known,” “ no sympathy ” 
“within the lavas of Kilauea ”*—was one of Kilauea’s greatest, 
although not registered, so far as known, in any outside stream 
of lava. 
b. Condition after the eruption.—Mr. Goodrich describes the 
Great Lake at the south end as “60 or 80 rods long, and 20 or 
380 rods wide,” about 20 feet below the brim; ‘‘the whole mass 
of liquid and semi-fluid lava was boiling, foaming and dashing 
its fiery bellows against the rocky shore; the mass was in 
motion, running from north to south, at the rate of two or 
* Report of Captain Dutton, p. 124, referring to the eruption near Lord Byron’s 
Hut. 
