Haleakala and Kilauea 



237 



been found evidences of human occupation. But what may have in- 

 duced human beings to seek habitations amid such weird desolation 

 is difficult to surmise. 



A strange and curious plant is almost the only living thing that 

 finds the crater a congenial environment. It goes by the name of 

 Silversword (Argyroxiphium) , in allusion to its leaves, which re- 

 semble silvery daggers set in spiral array around a stout woody stem. 

 They are from eight to eighteen inches long, and their glistening ap- 

 pearance is due to a dense covering of appressed silky hair, evidently 

 a protection against too great a loss of moisture in its extremely arid 

 habitat. The large flower-heads with their yellow disks and rose- 

 purple rays are striking objects of beauty and of interest; so much 

 so, indeed, that the time has come when the island authorities ought 

 to prohibit the gathering of it both by residents and by tourists. 

 Curiously enough, the plant constitutes a genus of the composites 

 whose nearest relatives are found among the tribe of the Madieae, 

 or Tarweeds, of California. There are two species, A. Sandwicense 

 and A. virescens, and both of them are not only peculiar to the 

 Hawaiian Islands, but are extremely restricted even there, for they 

 occur only on the summits of Haleakala, Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, 

 and Hualalai. Competent observers declare that they are becoming 

 markedly scarce in some of these habitats, for flocks of domestic 

 goats, gone wild, are filling their worthless hides with them, and 

 climbers often strew the trails with the glistening wreckage of ruth- 

 lessly torn-up Ahinahina, as the natives call the Silversword. Now 

 that a strip of the crater of Haleakala is part of the Hawaii National 

 Park, a little co-operation between the National Park Service and 

 the local territorial authorities might secure the extermination of the 

 goats and the enactment of a law against the picking and uprooting 

 of this singular and interesting plant. 



But I must resume the story of our progress through the crater, 

 which has many natural wonders that tempt the visitor to linger. A 

 partially filled crater within the crater goes under the name of Pele's 

 Pigpen; other features are Hunter's Cave, Crystal Cave, the Chim- 

 neys, and the Natural Bridge. Of greatest interest probably is the 

 so-called Bottomless Pit, a volcanic blow-hole about whose depth 

 there is much contradictory testimony. A precisely similar hole on 

 Hualalai is twenty feet in diameter and four hundred feet deep. 

 After threading our way for two hours or more among the cinder- 



