ERUPTION OF 1855.
We found a considerable ascent between the shore and the present terminus of the lava, which is about seven miles from the town, towards which it is directly advancing with unabated activity. There still intervenes about three miles of dense forest and jungle between it and the open ground. It has now been flowing about twenty-three weeks, all but the first two or three of which have been occupied in fighting or gnawing its way with sluggish but resistless force through ten or twelve miles of forest. The whole stream is some sixty miles long. Its rate of advance has been for a long time quite steady at about one mile in two weeks. These data may enable you to calculate how long it must continue to run to complete its victory over its most formidable obstacle, the forest, which has so far been the means of preserving the harbor of Hilo from its terrific invasion. It was about dark, when having ascended for one hundred rods the bed of the branch of the Wailuku River, we mounted a pali between two nearly dry cascades and found ourselves in the presence of the blazing woods and jungle. Passing up a few yards, we suddenly stumbled on the flowing lava, in a narrow dull sluggish stream, filling a side channel of the brook. It being in small quantity, yet in a state of fusion, gave us an admirable opportunity of obtaining such specimens as we could conveniently take away. This lava ap peared to be about a hundred yards in advance of a large body of the same about three hundred yards wide which was vigor ?ously burning its way down toward us through the woods. We 'finally laid down in a place that seemed secure, on the brow of a dry cascade ; but at three A. M. a body of the enemy came down in strong force and routed us out to watch its movement. Un obstructed in the smooth channel it rolled on about one hundred feet an hour, its front a glaring red, cooling as it flowed. At four a bright tongue darted forward and rolled with dull plash over the precipice. We sprang down to witness the marvelous sight. A brilliant cascade of intensely bright lava was pouring down a height of twenty-five feet, first in a broken, and at last in a con tinuous torrent, striking on a ledge and sliding off into the deep pool below, which hissed and roared in agonizing resentment at the horrible intrusion upon its placid slumber. The sheet of fire was about six feet wide, narrowing beautifully till it struck the rock, where it gradually heaped a mound of half solidified lava, which would now and then crash down into the water, which would then splutter and fly in all directions, while a glorious column of white vapor rose far aloft. We felt that we had a spectacle provided for us, and until day broke we stood devouring it with our eyes. No words can describe the exquisite and en trancing beauty of the whole scene, of which the hideous crawling monster we had seen above thus suddenly transfigured and leap ing in glory now became the center and the gem. Imagine a scene of most dim and delicate beauty, such as you may have seen or thought of, a silver cascade with its flashing foam and dark romantic amphitheater of cliff and forest all thrown into dim but rich relief by a full moon in a cloudless sky, then change your pale silver flood into one of intense burning gold, rolling down still and bright as the heart of a furnace, and you can imagine what a gem we gazed on and in what a setting. Nor did the grand white column of steam detract from the beauty of the sight. But day broke, the moon paled; the bright flood was again encased in its black and hideous mail, a huge mound of smoking scoriae was filling the basin, and the boiling water was flowing by our feet. So we returned up the other side of the stream to observe by daylight the great river of lava above. Making our way to its edge in various places, we were enabled to see what a vast river of it, now congealed in black misshapen billows of coke like stone, had forced its way from the S. W. past the point
where we stood, towards the Wailuku River, but that it had paused in that direction and had broken out on the side where we stood, pushing forward long tongues of fire into the timber as an advance and following these up in mass, burning and covering what they had spared. In one case we walked one hundred yards through the woods upon a slender thread of cooled lava, say fifteen feet wide, across which lay trees and bushes whose roots it had burned away. But everywhere the following fusion forbade our passage on to the main stream. This we judged to be more than a mile wide. Its depth is irregular. In the center it appeared to be heaped up thirty to fifty feet. We estimated its breadth by the appearance of the trees beyond. But for this test to correct deceptive appearance, I should have called it not above one hundred yards wide. The advancing phalanx of fire was about to reach en masse the wider and deeper channel of the stream below the fall, where it was evident so much of it as the capacity of the channel would admit, would pass forward with rapidity, and might run on even miles in advance of the rest. But even should this small portion soon pass down the Wailuku and reach the sea it could do no fatal injury. Should the main body take the same course as appearances indicate it would, the town and harbor would be totally destroyed. It is, however, the opinion of some who are familiar with the ground that the gen eral direction of the lava after leaving the woods would be to the southward of the town, across the Waiakea River, and into the bay near the present projecting reef which forms the harbor. It is of little use to speculate upon the result. This great eruption is an appalling thing. The hand of God governs it. He can turn its course or stay it altogether. But our fears are not allayed when we look at Mauna Loa and see those two vast col umns of smoke which it is still pouring forth. Some here have in their fears that faith in the Hearer of Prayer which God's word justifies, and arc supplicating the Divine interposition to avert the threatened calamity.
Mr. F. A. Weld, an Englishman, visited the 1855 flow Nov. 16th, coming up from Kilauea. He passed the source of the '52 eruption, io,000 feet above the sea, and reached the lava stream about three miles below the uppermost crater. The stream was about two miles wide, presenting every variety of form and dis tortion, sometimes with a smooth surface, broken by cracks and fissures, elsewhere twisted like strands of coiled rope or rolled out into huge waves and serpentine convolutions. Smoke and steam rose from it in many places, and the rock was hot, not far distant from the liquid fire. He had a fine view of the fiery flood below where the surface had fallen down. The huge arch and roof glowed red-hot and the glare was perfectly scorching. The lava at almost white heat moved from three to four miles per hour. Stones thrown upon the stream were carried along. The "lower crater" consisted of dark fantastically shaped rocks, volumes of smoke, heaps of stones, surrounded by an ocean of partially cooled lava. The discharge was entirely subterranean. He at tempted to look down one of the chimneys but could see only a long, broad fissure filled with smoke in the brief period when he could observe without suffocation. The "upper crater" was com posed of an infinity of steam and smoke vents at the foot and on the sides of two large mounds or hills of small loose stones, prob ably lapilli. Volumes of red smoke and partially ignited gases issued from the earth which would appear as actual flame by night. The altitude was estimated to be 12,000 feet and six or eight miles below the summit of Mauna Loa, 1,500 feet higher_ The stream of lava below was advancing about a mile per week.— From Quarterly Journal Geol. Soc., London, Vol. 13.