Rise of Sea Level at Honaunau— —Apple and Macdonald 
129 
certainly influenced by this frequent wetting 
during recent years. During the repair project 
workmen often were soaked with spray, but 
residents who had used the ramp in the early 
1920’s do not recall any spray at that time or 
any concern for damage to the ramp from high 
seas. 4 
The creeping erosion of the beach at Ke-one- 
ele cove and the recent damage to the 1868 
horse ramp are modern events. There is also ex- 
pert testimony and physical evidence that the 
water level at Honaunau was once lower than 
at present. 
4 On-site interviews by Apple with Mrs. Mabel Ke- 
afai Alporque, April 6, 1963; with Moses Kalele, 
April 6 , 1963; with William J. Paris, August 2, 1961; 
with Mrs. Martina Kaili Kekuewa Fuentevilla, July 
28, 1961; and with Henry Hua, August 1, 1961. 
After investigating the City of Refuge in- 
19 19 and conducting numerous on-site inter- 
views with long-time residents of the area, 
Bishop Museum anthropologist John F. G. 
Stokes reached the conclusion that a subsidence 
may have submerged certain features of ancient 
Hawaiian life (Stokes, 1957: 199-212). Arti- 
ficial concavities in the rocks which by 1919 
Stokes (1957:199, 211) indicated were under- 
water at high tide, are now exposed only at low 
tide. Some of the concavities are pictured in 
Figure 5. 
Many of the artificial concavities in the lava 
are under water most of the time, and some are 
exposed only at extreme low tide. They were 
made by the metal-lacking prehistoric Hawaiians 
with hammer stones, or by abrasion with sand, 
stones, and pounders— a most arduous process. 
Fig. 4. Head of Ke-one-ele cove, looking south, in 1964. The base of the same coconut tree (left) shown 
in Figure 3 has been protected with a crude sea wall. (City of Refuge negative 1001.) 
