BETWEEN 1832 AND 1840.
The next visit to Kilauea recorded was by Mr. David Douglass in 1834. He found two molten lakes—the more northern three hundred and nineteen yards in diameter ; the more southern, 1,190x700 yards in extent, and heart-shaped. The larger one oc casionaly boiled with terrific grandeur, throwing up jets estimated to be from twenty to seventy feet high. Nearby stood a chimney forty feet high, "which occasionally discharged its steam as if all the steam-engines in the world were concentrated in it." Pro fessor Dana says this is a good description of a blowing cone, though this name had not been used so early. Mr. Douglass measured the velocity of the movement in the lava by timing the rapidity of blocks of stone thrown upon the surface of the stream, just as one may estimate the velocity of water by the chips upon the top. This proved to be nearly three and a quarter miles per hour. Mr. Douglass used the barometer to determine the depths of the black ledge and pit. As the mean of two calculations he found the depth from. Uwekahuna to the former to be seven hun dred and fifteen feet, and to the bottom of the pit 1,077 feet, or three hundred and sixty-two feet below the black ledge. In addition to this he said it was forty-three feet more to the liquid lavas. This proves that there had been a renewal of the lava from the pit in 1832, and his other observations represent that the lower portion was larger and deeper than after the eruption of 1840. Douglass has been discredited because he seemed to have exaggerated the size and activity of Mokuaweoweo in a letter written to Dr. Hooker, dated three days later than the very rea sonable account of the phenomena mentioned above. It has been suggested that he wrote the latter under the influence of tempor ary hallucination.
Charles Burnham says the crater was eight hundred feet deep over the whole surface in 1835 with no cones over seventy-five feet high. A very large lake visible from the hut. From the record book June 17, 1881.
In August, 1837, Mr. S. N. Castle of Honolulu visited Kilauea, and reported that the lower pit below the black ledge was nearly filled up, and he also found active cones in all parts of the caldera.
In May, 1838, Captains Chase and Parker visited the volcano and some account of their trip was compiled by E. C. Kelley for the American Journal of Science. The lavas had nearly filled up the lower pit. Over its floor, about four square miles in extent, there were twenty-six cones, eight of which were throwing out cinders and molten lava. Six small lakes were in evidence. The largest one was probably identical with the later Halemaumau, upon whose surface an island of solid lava "heaved up and down in the liquid mass, and rocked like a ship on a stormy sea." They
also noted the oscillations in the heat, so obvious to later visitors. The lake which had been boiling violently became covered by a mass of black scoriae ; but this obscuration was temporary, for very soon this crust commenced cracking, black plates floated upon the surface like cakes of ice upon water, and probably dis appeared. At the last moment of observation about a quarter of the floor gave way and became a vast pool of liquid lava.
An elaborate drawing of the volcano as it seemed at that time accompanies the sketch, prepared by a New York artist, who evi dently incorporated into it the features of Vesuvius. It was taken from the south end, shows the great south lake and the floating island, and is of value because it indicates the nearly complete obliteration of the black ledge.
In August or September of the same year Count Strzelecki measured the height of the north-northeast wall with a barometer, finding it to be six hundred feet. Nothing is said about the black ledge, whence it may be inferred that it was not visible. Six craters filled with molten lava are mentioned, four of them three or four feet high, one forty feet and the other one hundred and fifty. Five of these had areas of twelve thousand feet each ; and the sixth contained nearly a million and had the name of Hau maumau, and was encircled by a wall of scoriae fifty yards high. He said that the lava rose and sunk in all the lakes simultaneously —an observation that has never been confirmed in the later his tory. The language descriptive of the craters filled with lava might be interpreted to correspond with the occasional manifesta tion of a lake supported upon a rim consisting of the cooled liquid, as shown particularly in 1894. Like Mr. Douglass Count Strzelecki has given in the Hawaiian Spectator a more ex travagant account of Kilauea, besides the reasonable one abridged above from a book upon New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land published seven years later. He was the first author to use the name Hau-mau-mau (Halemaumau).
The latest visit to the volcano previous to the great eruption in 1840 was made by Captain John Shepherd, R. N., September 16, 1839. He mentions several cones and small lakes on the floor of the pit on the way to the great lake. The black ledge was "obliterated" : there were cones twenty to thirty feet high emitting lava and vapors with loud detonations ; and the Great Lake, sup posed to be Halemaumau, though incorrectly stated to be on the east side, was a mile and a half long, within a cone a hundred feet high. There was an apparent flow of the liquid from south to north and spray thrown up from thirty to forty feet.