210 HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
It appears from the accounts that the mountain was fissured in the 
two directions, and that the ejections took place from the fissures in- 
stead of from the two summit craters where it commenced. 
We have remarked upon the quiet character of the eruptions of 
Kilauea. It is still more surprising that an outbreak of such magni- 
tude should have taken place, at the very summit, without any warn- 
ing to the islauders. The first indication of the eruption in progress 
evening of the third day, “as darkness gathered around us, the lurid fires of the voleano 
began to glow, and to gleam upon us from the foot of Mauna Kea, over all the plain be- 
tween the two mountains, and up the side of Mauna Loa and its snow-crowned summit, 
exhibiting the appearance of vast and innumerable furnaces, burning with intense vehe- 
mence, On this plain we spent the day traversing and surveying the immense streams 
of fresh scoria and slag, which lay in wild confusion, farther than the eye could reach, 
some cooled, some half cooled, and some still in fusion. The scoriform masses which 
formed the larger part of the flowings, lay piled in mounds, and extended in high ridges 
of from thirty to sixty feet elevation.” On the ascent they passed fields of scoria, and 
others of smoother lavas, and regions at times that were still steaming and hot, evincing 
igneous action beneath. ‘* Soon we came to an opening in the superincumbent stratum, 
of twenty yards long and ten wide, through which we looked, and at the depth of fifty 
feet, we saw a vast tunnel, or subterranean canal, lined with smooth vitrified matters, 
and forming the channel of a river of fire, which swept down the steep side of the moun- 
tain with amazing velocity. As we passed up the mountain, we found several similar 
openings into this canal, through which we cast large stones ; these, instead of sinking 
into the viscid mass, were borne along instantly out of our sight. Mounds, ridges and 
cones were also thrown up along the line of the lava stream, from the latter of which, 
steam, gases, and hot stones were ejected. At three o’clock we reached the verge of the 
great crater, where the eruption first took place, near the highest point of the mountain. 
Here we found two immense craters close to each other, of vast depth and in terrific 
action.” (Miss. Herald, xl. 44.) Mr, Coan writes as follows, in reply to certain queries by 
the author: “‘ The angle of descent down which the lavas flowed from the summit to the 
northern base of Mauna Loa is 6°; but there are many places on the side of the moun- 
tain where the inclination is 10°, 15°, or 25°, and even down these local declivities of half 
a mile to two miles in extent, the lava flowed in a continuous stream. This was the fact 
not only during the flow of several weeks upon the surface, but also in that wonderful 
flow in the subterranean duct, described in the Missionary Herald. There was no insur- 
mountable barrier in the way of the flow from the summit of Mauna Loa to the base of 
Mauna Kea, a distance of twenty-five or thirty miles. The stream sometimes struck 
mounds or hillocks, which changed its course for a little space, or around which it flowed 
in two channels, reuniting on the lower side of the obstacle, and thus surrounding and 
leaving it an island in the fiery stream. Ravines, caves, valleys, and depressions were 
filled up by the lava as it passed down the slope of the mountain, and between the two 
mountains. In conclusion I remark that the stream was continuous for more than twenty- 
five miles, with an average breadth of one and a half miles, and flowed down a declivity 
varying from 25° to 1°.” 
