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Sierra Club Bulletin 



ity with it extends over a lifetime; the latter was at the time of my 

 visit a student assistant on the staff of the Hawaiian Volcano Ob- 

 servatory. The senior Emerson, familiar with the Hawaiian lan- 

 guage and native folk-lore, recited the formula with which in earlier 

 days every Hawaiian approaching the fire-pit of the volcano made to 

 the dreaded goddess Pele a propitiatory offering of Ohelo berries — 

 the shining reddish fruit of a species of huckleberry (Vaccinium 

 reticulatum) , which was ripe at the time, good to eat, and abundant. 



The most spectacular view of Halemaumau is obtained at night. 

 At the bottom of a cone-shaped pit, varying from twelve hundred to 

 two thousand feet in diameter, are seen shimmering through sul- 

 phurous smoke several lakes of molten lava. At the time of my visit 

 their surface was more than three hundred feet below the rim of the 

 pit. Sometimes they rise to the rim and overflow ; at other times they 

 sink away, leaving the pit empty to a depth of perhaps a thousand 

 feet. 



As one watches the lakes at night, their surface is seen to darken 

 gradually as the lava cools and cakes on exposure to the air. Then 

 suddenly glowing cracks run across the surface like lightning. The 

 crust breaks up into fragments which are engulfed, leaving the sur- 

 face a glowing mass of molten matter upon which fire-fountains play 

 as gases escape from mysterious Plutonian depths. This process is 

 constantly repeated and accompanied by weird, unearthly noises. 



On Saturday, the sixth of August, Dr. T. A. Jaggar, volcanologist 

 in charge of the Volcano Observatory, kindly invited me to accom- 

 pany him on a tour of observation. We first went to an old lava tun- 

 nel which was recently found leading away from the inner wall of an 

 old hidden crater. By the aid of a strong flash-light we followed it 

 for a considerable distance under a tropical forest. It was oval in 

 shape, twelve to fifteen feet high, and at regular intervals there were 

 in the ceiling hollows, shaped like the dome of a locomotive, through 

 which gases from the lava probably escaped upward through fis- 

 sures. The walls were smooth and glistening, and one had the im- 

 pression of traveling along one of the earth's arteries bereft of its 

 volcanic life-blood. The lava tube probably ended miles away under 

 the sea. 



We then went past Halemaumau to some rift-cones where hot 

 gases were rising from lava-filled fissures far below. The orifices of 

 these vents, domed, and facing away from the prevailing wind, 



