J. D. Dana—History of the Changes in Kilauea. 449 
determined the height of the north-northeast wall down to the 
“boiling surface of igneous matter” to be 600 feet, and makes 
no mention of a black ledge. He describes six craters with 
boiling lavas, four of which were only 3 or 4 feet high, a fifth, 
» 40 feet, the sixth 150; the first five as containing 12,000 square 
feet each, while the sixth—which he says is called ‘‘ Hau-mau- 
mau ’’—contained nearly a million. He alludes plainly to the 
ebullition over this great lake in the expression ‘ceaseless 
impetuosity and fury.” He states that the lava sank and rose 
in all the lakes simultaneously ; which is not always true.* 
On the 16th of September, 1839, Captain John Shepherd, R. 
N., visited Kilauea (XII). He speaks of the black ledge as “‘ ob- 
literated ; ;’ of cones 20 to 30 feet high, whence issued vapors and 
lava with loud detonations; of a lake of lava toward the east 
side one mile long and half a mile wide within a cone 100 feet 
high, from the summit of which he saw the expanse of liquid 
lava in violent ebullition. He also mentions that the lavas had 
an apparent flow from south to north, and ads, ‘‘caused by 
the escape of elastic fluids, throwing up the spray in many 
parts 80 to 40 feet.” 
5.. BEFORE THE ERUPTION OF 1840.—Mr. Coan states (XII]) 
‘fon the testimony of many natives” that in the latter part of May, 
for a week previous to the eruption, the interior of Kilauea was 
‘fone great sea of liquid lavas;’’ which signifies the existence 
of many active cones and boiling lakes over the bottom and ex- 
tensive outflows from the lakes and from opened fissures. He 
remarks, further, that the ground about Kilauea so trembled 
from the action below that the islanders avoided the path along 
the verge of the crater. 
There was indubitable evidence at the time of my visit, in 
November, five months after the eruption, of a recent flooding 
of the black ledge with lavas, in the tortuous scoria-covered 
streams of cooled lava that covered it. 
6. THE ERUPTION oF 1840.—No intelligent observer was 
present at the eruption. Mr. Coan, then a resident of Hilo, 
returned home from Oahu in July, and his first account of it 
appeared in September of that year. He found that, through 
* Count Strzelecki’s note in the Hawaian Spectator occurs in the number for 
October, 1838, which number also states that he was visiting various portions of 
the Pacific in H. B. M.S. Fly. It differs widely from the report in his own work, 
in making the area of the largest lake 300,000 square yards, and those of the 
smaller ‘‘about 5,700 square yards each.” His volume is the later publication, 
and should set aside the newspaper note. Count Strzelecki, in this volume, de- 
scribes the terraces around the Kilauea crater as vast platforms; makes the 
height above the sea-level of the north-northeast side of Kilanea two paces from 
the edge of the precipice. 4.109 feet and 600 feet above the fires below; and ob- 
serves that this is 950 below the brim of the ancient crater, the highest point of 
which he made 5,054 feet, and its circuit 24 miles. He thought he saw evi- 
dence that this greater crater was formerly brimfull of molten lava. 
Am. Jour. Sct.—Tuirp SERIES, Vout. XXXIII, No. 198.—JUNE, 1887. 
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