GEOLOGY. 
177 
water, it is necessary to presume a bodily elevation of the whole, to place it in its 
present conspicuous situation. Diamond Hill has every appearance of having been a 
volcano, and it may have been l'aised from under the waters of the ocean at a period 
posterior to the rest of the island, as the land which joins it to the general range of moun- 
tains, if not coral, is on a level with the coral to the east and to the west. A lake is 
said to occupy the closed crater. Tradition relates, that several years back the sea 
rose so high as to inundate a great part of the islands, and sweep off a great number of 
inhabitants. Within the memory of living residents, they say a shower of black stones 
fell close to the town of Honoruru. 
I saw but very few specimens of the rocks. The mitta is generally a sort of greyish 
or reddish porphyry, or black basalt. The stone chisel, and no doubt also the adze, are 
a compact basalt. The native mirror is made of the same stone, and wetted when it is 
to be used. Pumice and recent lava I had an opportunity of procuring. The nodules 
of zeolite are rather rare. 
A very good general description of the volcano of Kirauca, at the foot of Mauna 
Roa, is contained in the Missionary Tour round Hawaii. It appears to be a very ex- 
tensive sheet of boiling lava, having small cones of black rock interspersed in the vast 
basin, and the whole covered with fiery waves. It is probably larger than any of the com- 
monly known craters. Tradition has appointed the goddess Pele to preside over it. 
ISLAND OF GREAT LOO CHOO. 
The island presents a surface diversified with rounded eminences of small elevation, 
and gentle declivities, for the most part in a state of cultivation. The middle ridges 
and rounded hummocks are covered with wood, generally the Finns Massoniana, with 
the Cycas, or with a short and unproductive vegetation. In the ridges of these hum- 
mocks are extensive ranges of tombs, excavated in the faces of the rocks, of several feet 
in height. Where they approach the sea, these rocks are much undermined ; in the 
harbour of Napakiang, they are very remarkable in this respect; and one has been 
named Capstan Rock, from its flattened top being circularly undermined so as to give it 
that form. It is washed by the waves, and appears to owe its shape to their influence. 
This hollowing out is not confined to those cliffs which are at the water’s edge ; it is 
also vei’y conspicuous to the south of Abbey Point, wberea long beach, now partly con- 
verted into a verdant flat, separates the sea from the rocks. These cliffs and precipices, 
whether in the interior or on the coast, are composed of a coral lime-stone, either com- 
pact or cellular, most commonly the latter, and presenting a very rugged surface. The 
principal of those coral ridges extends from the coast to the north-west of Nawlm (or 
Napakiang) inland, and eastward or south-east to the town of Ishoomee, and an enclosed 
building called Eepang-kwang, or the Palace of the King, according to Captain Hall. 
At this place it attains its greatest height, about 800 feet above the level of the sea. 
This appeared to us to be the highest part of the island. The other ridges and hum- 
mocks are seldom elevated above half this height. Some of them, particularly to the 
south-east of Abbey Point, are formed of a bluish marl, in some places approaching to 
