1 1 2 James D. Dana on the 



a height of 14,000 feet, the outbreak is quiet and noiseless ; 

 the mountain opens, the lavas flow. The vivid description 

 of Mr Coan, marked as it is with the actual terrors of the 

 scene, strikingly sustains these statements. For how unlike 

 Vesuvius in her great outbreaks is the Hawaian volcano, 

 when the crater, in its intensest eruption, could be approached 

 " within forty or fifty yards on the windward side,'' or " with- 

 in two miles on the leeward," and the traveller need retire 

 but to the distance of " a mile" from tne very scene of eruption 

 for his " night vigils." 



2. The mobility of the Hawaian lavas is most remarkably 

 exemplified in this eruption. The fiery rock at the crater 

 formed literally an open boiling fountain, instead of appear- 

 ing in eruptive discharges through a narrow-necked funnel. 

 A jet of clear liquid lava shot up in ceaseless flow to a height 

 of 300 feet or more, and, with its surrounding jets and falling 

 spray, produced, as Mr Fuller says, the effect of a Gothic 

 structure of molten metal, with its shafts and pinnacles and 

 buttresses, in quick incessant change — now rising into a tall 

 spire 700 feet in height, now spreading into more massy forms, 

 and ever dazzling the sight with its brilliancy. The scene of 

 this display, according to Mr Coan, was 5000 feet below the 

 summit outbreak,* and it would actually appear, as he implies, 

 that the hydrostatic pressure of the central column of lavas 

 in the mountain was the power that kept the jet in action. 

 Such a fountain of molten rock is majestic beyond con- 

 ception ; and the more wonderful, the more majestic, viewed 

 as the effect of simple pressure, with none of the convulsive 

 heavings common in other volcanoes. The terrible roar of 

 the crater was the sound of the ponderous mass agitated to 

 its depths, by the tossing and falling jets and the escape of 

 the imprisoned vapours ; it was not enhanced even by the 

 occasional shocks of an earthquake. 



3. Kilauea, a crater on the flanks of Mauna Loa, but 

 4000 feet above the sea, having its larger diameter 18,000 

 feet, or 3£ miles, exhibited at this time no signs of sympathy 

 with the summit action. If ever a region had its safety- 



* Seven thousand feet, or half way to the base, acoording to Mr Fuller. 



