Hawaii, Sandwich Islands--Crater of Kilauea--Its awful Aspect--Fiery
Lake and Islands--Jets of Lava--Depth of Crater and Surface
of Lake--Bank of Sulphur--Curious Rainbow--Mouna-Kaah and
Mouna-Loa--Eruption of the Latter in 1840--Recent Eruption--Great
Jet and Torrent of Lava--Burning of the Forests--Great
Whirlwinds--Underground Explosions--Other Volcanoes in the Pacific.
Hawaii is well known in history as being the island where the
celebrated navigator Captain Cook was killed. The name used to be
written Owhyhee; but a better apprehension of the native
pronunciation has led to its being altered into Hawaii. No one who
visits it in the present day need be afraid of sharing the fate of
poor Captain Cook; for the descendants of the savages who, in his
time, inhabited the island, have now, through the labours of
Christian missionaries, become a very decent sort of quiet,
well-behaved Christian people.
Hawaii, which is the largest of a group called the Sandwich
Islands, can boast of the greatest volcanic crater in the world. It
is called sometimes Kirauea, sometimes Kilauea; for the natives
seem not very particular about the pronunciation of their _l_
and their _r_; but where one uses _l_ another as
pertinaciously employs _r_, while a third set use a sound
between the two, as you may have heard some people do at home.
Situated on the lower slopes of a lofty mountain called Mouna-Roa,
or Loa (for there is the same dubiety about the _l_ and the
_r_ here as in the former case), the crater of Kilauea is a
vast plain between fifteen and sixteen miles in circumference, and
sunk below the level of its borders to a depth varying from two
hundred to four hundred feet--the walls of rock enclosing it being
for the most part precipitous. The surface of the ground is very
uneven, being strown with huge stones and masses of volcanic rock,
and it sounds hollow under the tramp of the foot.
Towards the centre of the plain is a much deeper depression. Those
who have ventured to approach it, and look down, describe it as an
awful gulf, about eight hundred feet in depth, and presenting a
most gloomy and dismal aspect. The bottom is covered with molten
lava, forming a great lake of fire, which is continually boiling
violently, and whose fiery billows exhibit a wild terrific
appearance. The shape of the lake resembles the crescent moon; its
length is estimated at about two miles, and its greatest breadth at
about one mile. It has numerous conical islands scattered round the
edge, or in the lake itself, each of them being a little
subordinate crater. Some of them are continually sending out
columns of gray vapour; while from a few others shoots up what
resembles flame. It is, probably, only the bright glare of the lava
they contain, reflected upwards. Several of these conical islands
are always belching forth from their mouths glowing streams of
lava, which roll in fiery torrents down their black and rugged
sides into the boiling lake below. They are said sometimes to throw
up jets of lava to the height of upwards of sixty feet. The
foregoing woodcut can convey only an imperfect idea of this immense
crater.
[Illustration: Crater of Kilauea]
The outer margin of the gulf all round is nearly perpendicular. The
height of the bounding cliffs is estimated at about four hundred
feet above a black horizontal ledge of hardened lava, which
completely encircles it, and beyond which there is a gradual slope
down into the burning lake. The surface of the molten lava is at
present between three and four hundred feet below this horizontal
ledge; but the lava is said sometimes to rise quite up to this
level, and to force its way out by forming an opening in the side
of the mountain, whence it flows down to the sea. An eruption of
this kind took place in 1859. On one side of the margin of the lake
there is a long pale yellow streak formed by a bank of sulphur. The
faces of the rocks composing the outer walls of the crater have a
pale ashy gray appearance, supposed to be due to the action of the
sulphurous vapours. The surface of the plain itself is much rent by
fissures. It is said that the glare from the molten lava in the
lake is so great as to form rainbows on the passing rain-clouds.
The entire Island of Hawaii is of volcanic origin; and besides this
great crater it contains two other lofty mountains, whose summits
are covered with snow, and whose height is estimated at fifteen or
sixteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. The one is named
Mouna-Kaah or Keah, the other is Mouna-Loa--the same on whose lower
flanks the crater of Kilauea is situated. Mouna-Kaah has long been
in a state of repose. So also was Mouna-Loa up to 1840, when it
burst forth with great fury, and it has continued more or less in a
state of activity ever since. There has been a grand eruption very
lately, said by the natives to have been the greatest of any on
record.
A new crater opened near the top, at a height of about ten thousand
feet, and for three days a flood of lava poured down the north-eastern
slope. After a pause of about thirty-six hours, there was
opened on the eastern slope, about half way down the mountain,
another crater, whence there rose an immense jet of liquid lava,
which attained a height of about a thousand feet, and had a
diameter of about a hundred feet. This jet was sustained for twenty
days and nights; but during that time its height varied from the
extreme limit of a thousand, down to about a hundred feet. The play
of this fiery fountain was accompanied by explosions so loud as to
be heard at the distance of forty miles. Nothing could surpass the
awful grandeur of this jet, which was at a white heat when it
issued from its source, but, cooling as it ascended into the air,
it became of a bright blood red, which, as the liquid fell,
deepened into crimson.
In a few days there was raised around this crater a cone of about
three hundred feet in height, composed of the looser materials
thrown out along with the lava. This cone continued to glow with
intense heat, throwing out occasional flashes. The base of this
cone eventually acquired a circumference of about a mile. But the
fountain itself formed a river of glowing lava, which rushed and
bounded with the speed of a torrent down the sides of the mountain,
filling up ravines and dashing over precipices, until it reached
the forests at the foot of the volcano. These burst into flames at
the approach of the fiery torrent, sending up volumes of smoke and
steam high into the air. The light from the burning forests and the
lava together was so intense as to turn night into day, and was
seen by mariners at a distance of nearly two hundred miles.
During the day the air throughout a vast extent was filled with a
murky haze, through which the sun showed only a pallid glimmer.
Smoke, steam, ashes, and cinders were tossed into the air and
whirled about by fierce winds--sometimes spreading out like a fan,
but every moment changing both their form and colour. The stream of
lava from the fountain flowed to a distance of about thirty-five
miles. The scene was altogether terrific--the fierce red glare of
the lava--the flames from the burning trees--the great volumes of
smoke and steam--the loud underground explosions and thunderings,--all
combined to overpower the senses, and fill the mind with
indescribable awe.
A remarkable volcanic chain runs along the northern and western
margins of the Pacific Ocean. It embraces the Aleutian Islands, the
peninsula of Kamtschatka, the Kurile, the Japanese, and the
Philippine Islands. The most interesting are the volcanoes of
Kamtschatka, in which there is an oft-renewed struggle between
opposing forces--the snow and glaciers predominating for a while,
to be in their turn overpowered by torrents of liquid fire.