214 HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
The characteristic features of Mount Loa consist in the absence of 
cones about its active vents, the large number of deep pit-craters, and 
the frequency of fissure-eruptions. All recent action has consisted in 
a rending of the mountain’s sides by the forces at work, and a flow- 
ing out or ejection of the lavas by these opened fissures. ‘This was 
the character of the late summit eruption, as well as of that of Kilauea. 
Tradition, and the knowledge of the natives, bear testimony to the 
same fact, and so also with equal or greater weight, the surface of the 
mountain itself in the numberless patches of lava which constitute it. 
The many cones, of which thousands may be counted, were not the 
first step in an eruption; they were formed, after the first flow, from 
ejections at certain points in the fissure that still remained open when 
the rest had closed, where the lava continued for a while to rise and 
pour or spout out, or was ejected in fragments that cooled into “cin-. 
ders.” They are the indexes which remain to mark the course of a 
fissure, and not original centres of independent action. 
b. Mount Kea. 
Mount Kea exceeds Mount Loa in altitude about 190 feet.* It 
has the same gradual slopes, the average angle of inclination from the 
sea on the northeast being 7° 46’, (see figure, page 159.) Yet the 
mountain is peculiar in many of its features. Besides having a more 
pointed summit, giving it the outline of a very obtuse cone, it has no 
distinct terminal crater. There are at top nine cones or conical hills, 
consisting of cinders or scoria and fragments of lava. They are esti- 
mated by Dr. Pickering at five or six hundred feet in height. 
Over the slopes of the mountain, there were observed no wide. 
streams of lava with a ropy appearance, like those of Mount Loa. The 
surface consisted mostly of loose fragments or masses, and earth, and 
parasitic cones were very numerous. Vesicular lavas occur about the 
summit and the subordinate cones of the declivities, but there were 
no large fields of lava. ‘The layers of rock, where exposed to view, 
were generally of compact texture, with rarely a cellule or none, and 
were mostly a gray basalt, or a dark basaltic graystone. A clinkstone, 
nearly like that of the summit of Mount Loa, was also met with. 
There were besides large deposits of coarse conglomerate, consisting 
* See page 156, and note tothe same. This mountain was ascended by Dr. C. Picker- 
ing and Mr. Brackenridge, from whom the facts regarding it were mostly obtained. 
