It has been difficult to be entirely satisfied with some of the details offered in this sketch, because of repetitions, and of dif ferences in the accompanying sketches. The first are explained by the supposition that to the original statement additions were made by others of the party ; and the second may be due to the artist or engraver who make changes to suit fancy. The earlier ac count of all the Hawaiian volcanoes have been more or less influ enced by a supposed similarity to Vesuvius. Instead of repro ducing the sketches, I will present a restoration of what seem to me to be the true delineation of the cliffs, the black ledge and the lakes of fire, as they appeared in 1823, Plate 27B. The verbal de scription of the volcano given above by Mr. Ellis represents things as seen from Uwekahuna, but the views published must have been taken from the opposite side of the pit, showing the place on which he stood when he obtained his impressions.
The descriptions of the two sulphur banks correspond to what have been seen later by others. The one at the north end was said to be about one hundred and fifty yards long, and thirty feet high at the maximum, showing much sulphur mixed with red clay. The ground was hot, fissures seamed the surface through which thick vapors continually ascended. Fine crystals of sulphur ap peared in acicular light yellow prisms near the surface ; those lower down were of an orange-yellow color in single or double tetrahedral pyramids an inch long. Ammonium sulphate, alum and gypsum frequently incrusted the stems. The other sulphur bank was larger and the sulphur more abundant, but they did not find time to examine it carefully. Both these banks correspond to what is now called a solfatara.
The view by night was impressive. "The agitated mass of liquid lava, like a flood of melted metal, raged with tumultuous whirl. The lively flame danced over its undulating surface, tinged with sulphureous blue, or glowing with mineral red, cast a broad glare of dazzling light on the indented sides of the insulated craters, whose roaring mouths, amid rising flames and eddying streams of fire, shot up, at frequent intervals, with very loud de tonations, spherical masses of fusing lava or bright ignited' stones." Mr. Ellis correctly named the rock, calling it basalt containing fine grains of feldspar and augite, with olivine. He also found zeolites and described the volcanic glass called Pele's hair by the natives. He conceived it to have been produced by a separation of fine spun threads from the boiling fluid, and when borne by the smoke above the edges of the crater had been wafted by the winds over the adjacent plain. He examined several of the small
craters, which from above had appeared like mole hills, and found them to be from twelve to twenty feet high. The outside was composed of bright shining scoria and the inside was red with a glazed surface. He also entered several tunnels through which the lava had flowed into the abyss, and correctly ascribes their origin to the formation of the roof and sides by the cooling of the exterior, while the liquid for a time continued to flow in the inside. Professor Dana thinks that the fan figured on the west wall in the first sketch of the south end of the volcano was one of these tunnels, but it seems to me that it was only a fan of gravelly scoriae. It appeared as an isolated cone in the second sketch, de tached from the wall, probably because the engraver did not know what else to do with it. Dr. S. E. Bishop tells me that this fan was very conspicuous when he first visited the volcano seventy years ago, and at his suggestion I looked for it in 1905 and could identify its location. Probably the tunnels were upon the eastern side, where later flows, such as those made in 1832, are still in evidence. These tunnels were represented as being hung with red and brown stalactitic lava, while the floor appeared like one continued glassy stream. The riffle of the surface was as well defined as if the lava had suddenly stopped and become indurated before it had time to settle down to horizontality.
It would appear from what has been stated that there was more than one lake of fire at this time, and that there was a great abyss into which the surplus lava from the higher lake and the streams through the tunnels had accumulated. Mr. Ellis also speaks of the two side craters Keanakakoi and Kilatrea iki, thus proving that these names were in use in 1823, and he seems to have been the originator of the expression "black ledge," which represented the level assumed by the molten lava before the recent discharge to the southwest. He speaks of many masses of grey basaltic rock, weighing from one to four and five tons, and surmised that they had been ejected from the great crater during some violent eruption. Not to present more of his truthful descriptions, I will refer only to his final speculation of the extent of the present subterranean fires. The whole island of Hawaii was said to be "one complete mass of lava, or other volcanic matter in different stages of decomposition. Perforated with innumerable apertures in the shape of craters, the island forms a hollow cone over one vast furnace, situated in the heart of a stupendous submarine mountain, rising from the bottom of the sea," etc.34