2 &4- HA WAIL L LETTER xxx - 



craters extend over the whole mountain, all of them covered 

 outside, and a few inside, with scraggy vegetation. The edges 

 are often very ragged and picturesque. The depth varies from 



Pit-craters 



300 to 700 feet, and the diameter from 700 to 1200. The 

 walls of some are of a smooth grey stone, the bottoms fiat, 

 and very deep in sand, but others resemble the tufa cones of 

 Mauna Kea. They are so crowded together in some places as 

 to be divided only by a ridge so narrow that two mules can 

 scarcely walk abreast upon it. The mountain was split by an 

 earthquake in 1868, and a great fissure, with much treacherous 

 ground about it, extends for some distance across it. It is 

 very striking from every point of view on this side, being a 

 complete wilderness of craters, and over 150 lateral cones have 

 been counted. 



The object of my second ascent was to visit one of the 

 grandest of the summit craters, which we had not reached 

 previously owing to fog. This crater is bordered by a narrow 

 and very fantastic ridge of rock, in or on which there is a 

 mound about 60 feet high, formed of fragments of black, 

 orange, blue, red, and golden lava, with a cavity or blow-hole 

 in the centre, estimated by Brigham as having a diameter of 

 25 feet, and a depth of 1800. The interior is dark brown, 

 much grooved horizontally, and as smooth and regular as if 

 turned. There are no steam cracks or signs of heat anywhere. 

 Superb caves or lava-bubbles abound at a height of 6000 feet. 

 These are moist with ferns, and the drip from their roofs is 

 the water supply of this porous region. 



Hualalai, owing to the vegetation sparsely sprinkled over it, 

 looks as if it had been quiet for ages, but it has only slept 



Hualalai. 



