ERUPTION OF 1832.
The accounts of the eruption of 1832 are sufficiently full to enable us to know that the disturbances in Kilauea near the lakes of fire correspond to those manifested at other eruptive periods. According to the statements that have already been cited, the lower pit had been filled up with lava to the amount of nine hun dred feet since the discharge of 1823. Rev. Joseph Goodrich visited the locality in November and says that the lava "had now again sunk down to nearly the same depth as at first, leaving as usual a boiling caldron at the south end. The inside of the crater had entirely changed. * * * In January preceding—about the 12th as nearly as I can ascertain—the volcano commenced a vigorous system of operations, sending out volumes of smoke ; and the fires so illumined the smoke that it had the appearance of a city enveloped in one general conflagration."" A day or two later there were six or eight smart earthquakes, repeated for two or three days. These may have been concerned more particularly with the emissions on the plain between the two craters of Kilauea and Kilauea iki.
On descending into the caldera, Mr. Goodrich speaks of the molten lava at the south end—"an opening in the lava sixty to eighty rods long, and twenty or thirty wide." About twenty feet below the brink this liquid mass was "boiling, foaming and dash ing in billows against the rocky shore. The mass was in motion, running from north to south at the rate of two or three miles an hour ; boiling up as a spring at one end, and running to the other." He speaks of this mass as a lake, and says that the liquid lava is incrusted by its own cooling, just as ice is formed over rivers in climates. As the ice in rivers crashes against the shores, so this crust is forced against the bank and distorted. The lava crusts melt and reform while "gaseous matter is forced through, scattering the liquid fire in every direction." There were also two islands in this lake.
This, however, must have been after the discharge of the liquid from the bottom of the pit. There is absolutely no testimony from any source, of this eruption, save the statement that it ran away about January i2th. Whether it appeared at the surface,
filled up some subterranean cavity or flowed under the sea is en tirely unknown. Before its disappearance the lava rose about fifty feet above the black ledge of 1823, thus building up a plat form believed to be nine hundred feet above the molten lake.
From Mr. Goodrich's statements the depth of the bottom must have been 1,75o feet from the top of the wall. This is confirmed by an entry in the private diary of Rev. W. P. Alexander who visited the volcano January 12, 1833, two months later than Mr. Goodrich, who says the crater was two thousand feet deep. He does not speak of any black ledge ; whence it is inferred that this terrace must have been very narrow, as in 1823. Mr. Alexander was disappointed in not finding the principal furnace in lively action while he was at the bottom of the pit ; but by the time he had returned to the summit a furious action had commenced and molten lava spouted far into the air with a roaring sound. The following day the boiling caldron was found to he 3,00o feet long, i,000 wide, and spouting in jets forty or fifty feet high.
The manifestations of igneous activity in another part of the area, at this time, January, 1832, as reported by Mr. Goodrich and confirmed by later observations of the effects produced, were unlike any others that have been seen at Kilauea. "The earth quakes rent in twain the walls of the crater on the east side from the top to the bottom, producing seams from a few inches to several yards in width, from which the region around was de luged with lava. * * * The chasms" (were developed) "within a few yards of where Mr. Stewart, Lord Byron, myself and others had slept," the spot being the "Hut" on Malden's map, "so that the spot where I have lain quietly many times is entirely overrun with lava." Back of it, at right angles with the main chasm, and about half way up the precipice, there was a vent a quarter of a mile in length from which the lava issued which had destroyed the Hut. This fissure thus was parallel with the edge of Kilauea.