AFRO-INDIAN REGIONS. 



453 



On the 25th, we continued the ascent on the hardened surface of 

 the tumbling lava-streams to the plain above ; where we recrossed the 

 path followed by Captain Wilkes, and entered the village of Kuyupi, 

 at the end of about five miles since morning. We were now in the 

 district of Puna ; and the plants belonging to the vicinity of the Great 

 Crater began to make their appearance. Two miles beyond Kuyupi, 

 we left the main path ; and proceeding a short distance Northward 

 through the woods, found ourselves on the brink of the deep pit-crater 

 of " Moko-opuhi startled by suddenly looking into it, for fifteen hun- 

 dred feet downwards. This is the eighth in the series of pit-craters 

 that extend in a line from the seat of volcanic action within the 

 Great Crater to where the plain ceases, by the country beginning to 

 decline towards the Northeastern coast. They seemed therefore to 

 have been formed by undermining, by the removal of material at a 

 great depth beneath the surface ; being situated in continuation of the 

 great Crevice of formation and eruption. — The ninth and last pit- 

 crater, called the " Mu," was visited by Mr. Drayton ; and is repre- 

 sented on his map, as the largest of the pit-craters, much exceeding 

 a mile in diameter, 



A small patch of the new lava was lying close to the farther brink 

 of the eighth pit-crater; and in a line from this point Westward, we 

 soon fell in with two other small patches of the new lava. Next 

 beyond, we arrived at the seventh pit-crater, called " Arare ;" and 

 found it nearly circular, about half a mile in diameter, and perhaps a 

 thousand feet deep. The bottom was observed to be a blackened lake- 

 like floor of the new lava ; and there were marks of its level having 

 once been three hundred feet higher up. 



The Eruption in May commenced by molten lava making its ap- 

 pearance at the bottom of this seventh pit-crater : giving rise to the 

 report, that " a new volcano had burst forth on Hawaii." The ingress 

 took place on " Saturday but the new lava soon " sunk down and 

 cooled," and a little beyond, made its appearance in the plain above, 

 in the three small patches just mentioned. Instead of next entering 

 the deep eighth pit-crater, the new lava split the mountain that pro- 

 jects alongside, and came to the surface in the plain beyond, in a 

 Fourth new lava-patch ; which rests on the authority of Kaivi, Mr. 

 Drayton's guide. After another interval, it came to the surface in a 

 Fifth new lava-patch ; according to Mr. Drayton's map, Northeast 

 of the ninth and last pit-crater. The next, or Sixth new lava-patch 



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