ERUPTION OF 1852.
The preceding eruption was really the opening scene of a fine exhibition six months later which started on the north side of the mountain, February 17th. Qn February loth, the chief flow had shifted to another place about xo,000 feet above the sea level. The escaping lava rose at first in a lofty fountain, and then flowed easterly twenty miles.
I quote quite extensively from Mr. Coan ; Amer. Jour. Science, 1852.
"At half past three on the morning of the 17th ultimo, a small beacon light was discovered on the summit of Mauna Loa. At first it appeared like a solitary star resting on the apex of the mountain. In a few moments its light increased and shone like a rising moon. Seamen keeping watch on deck in our port ex claimed: 'What is that ? The moon is rising in the West !' In fifteen minutes the problem was solved. A flood of fire burst out of the mountain and soon began to flow in a brilliant cur rent down its northern slope. It was from the same point, and it flowed in the same line as the great eruption which I visited in March, 1843. In a short time immense columns of burning lava shot up heavenward to the height of three or four hundred feet, flooding the summit of the mountain with light and gilding the firmament with its radiance. Streams of light came pouring down the mountain, flashing through our windows and lighting up our apartments so that we could see to read large print. When we first awoke, so dazzling was the glare on our windows that we supposed some building near us must be on fire ; but as the light shone directly upon our couch and into our faces we soon perceived its cause. In two hours the molten stream had rolled, as we judged, about fifteen miles down the side of the mountain. This eruption was one of terrible activity and surpassing splendor, but it was short. In about twenty-four hours all traces of it seemed to be extinguished.
"At daybreak on the loth of February, we were again startled by a rapid eruption bursting out laterally on the side of the moun tain facing Hilo, and about midway from the base to the summit of the mountain. This lateral crater was equally active with the one on the summit, and in a short time we perceived the molten river flowing from its orifice direct towards Hilo. The action became more and more fierce from hour to hour. Floods of lava poured out of the mountain's side, and the glowing river soon reached the woods at the base of the mountain, a distance of twenty miles.
"Clouds of smoke ascended and hung like a vast canopy over the mountain, or rolled off upon the wings of the wind. These clouds assumed various hues—murky, blue, white, purple or scarlet—as they were more or less illuminated from the fiery abyss below. Sometimes they resembled an inverted burning mountain with its apex pointing to the awful orifice over which it hung. Sometimes the glowing pillar would shoot up vertically for several degrees, and then describing a graceful curve, sweep off horizontally, like the tail of a comet, further than the eye could reach. The sable atmosphere of Hilo assumed a lurid appearance, and the sun's rays fell upon us with a yellow, sickly light. Clouds of smoke careered over the ocean, carrying with them ashes, cinders, charred leaves, etc., which fell in showers upon the decks of ships approaching our coast. The light was seen more than a hundred miles at sea, and at times the purple tinge was so widely diffused as to appear like the whole firmament on fire. Ashes and capillary vitrifactions called 'Pele's hair' fell thick in our streets and upon the roofs of our houses. And this state of things still continues, for even now (March 5th) while I write, the atmosphere is in the same yellow and dingy condition ; every object looks pale, and sickly showers of vitreous filaments are falling around us, and our children are gathering them.
"As soon as the second eruption broke out I determined to visit it. Dr. Wetmore agreeing to accompany me, we procured four natives to carry our baggage, one of them, Kekai, acting as guide. On Monday, the 23d of February, we all set off and slept in the outskirts of the great forest which separates Hilo from the mountains. Our track was not the one I took in 1843, namely, the bed of a river ; we attempted to penetrate the thicket at another point, our general course bearing southwest." Without specifying matters relating to the party and circum stances, I quote the text farther on : "At half past three P. M. I reached the awful crater and stood alone in the light of its fires. It was a moment of unutterable interest. I seemed to be standing in the presence and before the throne of the eternal God, and while all other voices were hushed His alone spoke. I was Io,000 feet above the sea, in a vast soli tude untrodden by the foot of man or beast ; amidst a silence un broken by any living voice, and surrounded by scenes of terrific desolation. Here I stood almost blinded by the insufferable brightness ; almost deafened with the startling clangor ; almost petrified with the awful scene. The heat was so intense that the crater could not be approached within forty or fifty yards on the windward side, and probably not within two miles on the leeward. The eruption, as before stated, commenced on the very summit of the but it would seem that the lateral pressure of the embowelled lava was so great as to force itself out at a weaker point in the side of the mountain, at the same time cracking and rending the mountain all the way down from the summit to the place of ejection. The mountain seemed to be siphunculated; the
fountain of fusion being elevated some two or three thousand feet above the lateral crater, and being pressed down an inclined subterranean tube, escaped through this valve with a force which threw its burning masses to the height of four or five hundred feet. The eruption first issued from a depression in the moun tain, but a rim of scoriae two hundred feet in elevation had al ready been formed around the orifice in the form of a hollow truncated cone. This cone was about half a mile in circumfer ence at its base, and the orifice at the top may be three hundred feet in diameter. I approached as near as I could bear the heat, and stood amidst the ashes, cinders, scoriae, slag and pumice, which were scattered wide and wildly around. From the horrid throat of this cone vast and continuous jets of red-hot and some times white-hot lava were being ejected with a noise that was al most deafening, and a force which threatened to rend the rocky ribs of the mountain and to shiver its adamantine pillars. At times the sound seemed subterranean, deep and infernal. First, a rumbling, a muttering, a hissing or deep premonitory surging; then followed an awful explosion, like the roar of broadsides in a naval battle, or the quick discharge of pack after pack of artillery on the field of carnage. Sometimes the sound resembled that of io,000 furnaces in full blast. Again it was like the rattling of a regiment of musketry ; sometimes it was like the roar of the ocean along a rock-bound shore ; and sometimes like the boom ing of distant thunder. The detonations were heard along the shores of Hilo. The eruptions were not intermittent, but con tinuous. Volumes of the fusion were constantly ascending and descending like a jet d'eau. The force which expelled these igneous columns from the orifice shivered them into millions of fragments of unequal size, some of which would be rising, some falling, some shooting off laterally, others describing graceful curves ; some moving in tangents, and some falling back in vertical lines into the mouth of the crater. Every particle shone with the brilliancy of Sirius, and all kinds of geometrical figures were being formed and broken up. No tongue, no pen, no pencil can portray the beauty, the grandeur, the terrible sublimity of the scene. To be appreciated it must be felt. * * * During the night the scene surpassed all power of description. Vast col umns of lava at a white heat shot up continuously in the ever varying forms of pillars, pyramids, cones, towers, turrets, spires, minarets, etc., while the descending showers poured in one in cessant cataract of fire upon the rim of the crater down its burning throat and over the surrounding area ;—each falling avalanche containing matter enough to sink the proudest ship. A large fissure opening through the lower rim of the crater gave vent to the molten flood which constantly poured out of the orifice, and rolled down the mountain in a deep, broad river, at the rate prob ably of ten miles an hour. This fiery stream we could trace all the way down the mountain until it was hidden from the eye by its windings in the forest, a distance of some thirty miles. The stream shone with great brilliancy in the night, and a long hori zontal drapery of light hung over its whole course. But the great furnace on the mountain was the all absorbing object." May 6. "The great furnace on the mountain is still in terrible blast. No decrease of activity, but rather an increase." In July Mr. Coan again visited the flow. The fires had ceased. A kind of pumice was very plentiful, beginning ten miles from the cone. It grew more and more abundant till the source of the flow was reached—where it covered everything to the depth of five to ten feet.
Messrs. H. Kinney and Fuller visited the source of this flow in March." Mr. Kinney described jets rising from four hundred to eight hundred feet and represented the existence of a deep unearthly, roar, comparable to that of Niagara, heard a long distance away. The heat also created terrific whirlwinds. The two gentlemen agreed that the diameter of the crater from which the fountain rose was about r,000 feet ; the height of the crater from one hun dred to one hundred and fifty feet ; height of the fountain two hundred to seven hundred feet, rarely below three hundred ; and the diameter of the fountain from two hundred to three hundred feet. The jet sometimes became a Gothic spire of two hundred feet, then after subsiding stood at three hundred feet with points comparable to architectural ornaments. Rev. D. B. Lyman of Hilo confirmed these estimates. The lava streams sometimes seem to have been two hundred to three hundred feet thick.
Rev. E. P. Baker of Hilo visited the scene of this overflow in 1889 and found a single red cone in the midst of much pumice. There seemed to have been only one outlet. The lower part 01 the stream consisted of as changing to pahoehoe higher up.