KILAUEA, HAWAITIL 191 
The islets of forest trees in the midst of the stream of lava were from 
one to fifty acres in extent, and the trees still stood and were sometimes 
living. Captain Wilkes describes a copse of bamboo which the lava had 
divided and surrounded; yet many of the stems were alive, and a part 
of the foliage remained uninjured.* Near the lower part of the flood, 
the forests were destroyed for a breadth of half a mile either side, and 
were loaded with the volcanic sand; but in the upper part Dr. Picker- 
ing found the line of dead trees only twenty feet wide. ‘The lavas 
sometimes flowed around stumps of trees, and as the tree was gradually 
consumed, it left a deep cylindrical hole, sometimes two feet in 
diameter, either empty or filled with charcoal.t ‘Towards the margin 
of the stream these stump-holes were innumerable, and in many 
instances the fallen top lay near by, dead but not burnt. Dr. Pickering 
also states that some epiphytic plants upon these fallen trees had 
begun again to sprout. ‘The rapidity with which lava cools is still 
more remarkably shown in the fact that it was found sometimes 
hanging in stalactites from the branches of trees; and although so 
fluid when thrown off from the stream as to clasp the branch, the 
heat had barely scorched the bark. 
The waters of the sea were so much heated that the shores for 
twenty miles were strewed with dead fish. 
From the period, thirty-six hours, which the lavas required to 
reach the sea, an average velocity of four hundred feet an hour is 
readily deduced, as stated by Captain Wilkes. Yet, as the lavas 
issued from various fissures along the course,t{ the result cannot be 
correctly compared to an overflow of fluid: it is rather the rate of pro- 
cress of the eruption than of the motion of a flowing liquid. 
The thickness of the stream of lava here described was estimated 
by Dr. Pickering as averaging ten or twelve feet. In some places 
it was not over six feet. ‘The whole area, judging from the sur- 
veys, covers about fifteen square statute miles; and reducing to 
feet and multiplying by the depth, 12 feet, gives for the amount of 
ejected lava 5,018,000,000 cubic feet; to which, if we add for the 
* Narrative Exp. Exp., iv. 184. 
+ Similar facts to those here stated were observed by M. Bory de St. Vincent at the 
Isle of Bourbon.— Voyage aux Isles d’ Afrique, 3 vols., 4to, Paris, 1804. 
$ On this point we cite the following passage from the Narrative by Captain Wilkes, 
(iv. 184):—“There are many fissures along the whole line, as will be perceived by the 
dark places on the map. I feel confident that from each of these an ejection had taken 
place, and that the lava had in some cases flowed in a contrary direction of the stream.” 
