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PACIFIC SCIENCE, Voi XIX, January 1965 
Fig. 1. Index map of the island of Hawaii, showing littoral cone localities (after Steams and Macdonald, 
1946) and year of formation of three historic littoral cones. 
These cones were formed by a lava flow 
which broke out 7 miles inland at an altitude of 
750 ft on the east rift zone of Kilauea on May 
30, 1840, and continued flowing for a period of 
26 days. The flow totaled approximately 281 
million cubic yards, of which approximately 200 
million flowed into the sea (Stearns and Mac- 
donald, 1946:111). 
The following vivid account by the Rev. 
Titus Coan (Brigham, 1909:52-54) describes 
the entry of the flow into the sea: 
The flow . . . rolled down with resistless energy to the 
sea, where leaping a precipice of forty or fifty feet, it 
poured itself in one vast cataract of fire into the deep 
below, with loud detonations, fearful hissings, and a 
thousand unearthly and indescribable sounds. . . . The 
