178 HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
lava alone, and the column is more remarkable still, as an instance of 
a vertical surface thus produced. Such occurrences, as was after- 
wards found, are not uncommon about Mount Loa. From another 
part of the crater I procured two specimens of the same kind on a 
miniature scale. One of them was not over eight inches long, and 
the drops of the column were but a fourth of an inch in diameter. 
The preceding figure nearly represents it, except that the column was 
much longer in proportion to the base, and the drops a little larger. 
Such facts exhibit very decisively the remarkable fluidity of the 
lavas of Lua Pele. ‘The small specimens last referred to consisted of 
the solid, stony lava, with few cellules, and not of loose scoria.* 
An interval of only a few hours is sufficient to harden and cool the 
* Equally remarkable structures of lava are described by the Rey. Charles S. Stewart, 
after his visit in 1829. There were two hollow columns tapering above nearly to a point, 
measuring about twenty feet in height, and not more than thirty in diameter at base. 
They had been formed by successive slight overflowings of lava, cooling as it rolled 
down into irregular flutings, ornamented with rude drops and pendants, and long tapering 
stalactites.— Visit to the South Seas, ii. 98. 
Others of a similar kind are mentioned in the Narrative of the Expedition by Captain 
Wilkes, as occurring in an old lava stream, near the eruption of 1840. Several trun- 
cated cones, pillars, rude columns, and colossal statues of lava were met with, some twenty 
feet high, which were perforated at centre from top to bottom, Narrative Exp. Exp. iv. 
185, and figure, p. 196. 
A still more wonderful example was observed by the Rev. Mr. Coan in February 1842, 
as communicated by him in a letter to the author. The large lake, at this tame, was sur- 
rounded by a ridge six to fifteen feet high, raised around wt by the cooling of the lavas 
as they boiled up. Respecting this singular fact, Mr, Coan writes as follows: «* When within 
four or five rods of the great lake, unaware of our near proximity to it, we saw directly 
before us a vast area of what we had supposed to be solid lava moving off to the right 
and left. We were at first a little startled, not knowing but all was about to float away 
beneath us, especially as the lavas for a mile back were almost insupportably hot, and 
gases and steam were escaping from numerous openings. On looking again, we per- 
ceived that the whole surface of the lake was from sza to fifteen feet above the level of the 
surrounding lava, although, at my last visit, it was sixty to seventy feet below. Within 
six feet of this embankment we could see nothing of the lake, and in order to examine it 
we climbed the precipice some fifty feet. The explanation of this strange condition of 
things is this: —When the liquid contents of the lake had risen to a level with the brim, 
there was a constant and gradual boiling over of the viscid mass, but in quantities too 
small to run off far, Consequently, it solidified on the margin, and thus formed the high 
rim, which confined the lavas. Twice, or at two points, while we were there, the liquid 
flood broke through the rim, and flowed off in a broad, deep channel, which continued its 
flow till we left the volcano. The view was a new one, and thrilling beyond descrip- 
tion.” 
