ERUPTION OF 1855.
In May and June travelers reported a fiery girdle around the whole circumference of the caldera ; intense heat and suffocating gases were encountered upon the road back of Uwekahuna, so that men and horses were forced to make a wide detour to the west. The fires evidently followed the course of the canals reported in 1846 ; and along these lines Mr. Coan could count sixty areas of fusion or "lakes of leaping lavas." One great lake was located at the foot of the path down the sloping terraces, and there were other boiling caldrons so that the continuity of the road to Hale maumau was interrupted.
On July 6th, Mr. T. M. Coan found the lava lake in the path mostly covered by a crust, but the lavas were in violent action in several places along the margin of the black ledge. Halemau man was estimated to be two hundred and fifty to four hundred feet in diameter surrounded by walls seventy-five feet high. The surface became encrusted, but every five minutes there opened in the center a fiery surface perhaps fifteen feet across from which a fountain would burst out up to twenty-five or thirty feet. In the vicinity another similar fountain in a few seconds would start up and go through the same changes. There were furious surgings and outflows of lava from cavernous openings under the northeast wall. Much Pele's hair was found and there were two islands in the northwest part of the lake.
Sept. 8, 1855. Lake two or three miles in circumference, circu lar. Several comes emitting smoke, from some of which issued streams of lava. "One stream was not less than seventy-five or one hundred feet wide, descending at an angle of near 45° and branching off in two opposite directions. Two of these cones presented the appearance of immense furnaces." At night there was the great light of the lake and some twenty lesser lights visible.—Editorial by S. C. Damon in the Friend.
October gth there was less activity and the dome had fallen in.
There had been a dozen open lakes arranged in two semicircular lines from Halemaumau along the eastern and western sides, prob ably on the border of the lower platfom of the previous years. The flow is very distinct northwards. The encircling belt has been elevated between one hundred and two hundred feet since April.
Though meager these accounts are believed to describe the im portant breakdown of 1855, coinciding essentially with the great eruption from a vent high up upon Mauna Loa. It is confirmed by the estimate of the height of Uwekahuna given by Mr. Weld in the following month.
Mr. F. G. Weld visited Kilauea November 14th, 1855, on the way to the flow of 1855, Mauna Loa. It was not a time of ac tivity. No lake of fire could be seen, although the light of sub terranean fires was obvious at night. His companion, Mr. Stuart Wortley, observed that hot stones and melted lava were occa sionally ejected from small craters. And Mr. Weld on his return from Mauna Loa spoke of the floor as being evidently the cooled upper crust of fused lava. The small mounds have orifices like the mouth of a lime kiln through which one can look into the red-hot depths below. In some places there were long ridges of smoking rock fragments that had been piled confusedly upon one another. Heat and noxious gases were exhaled from various vents. The lava was generally of a dull, glossy lead color when cool ; but of a brighter green or blue when more recent. The "Pele's hair" had reddish, brownish and golden hues. These gentlemen lodged in a grass hut. The height of the highest cliffs from the bottom of the pit has been estimated to be 1,500 feet, and in many places they were satisfied it was considerably less. Other familiar objects were seen by these visitors.—From Quarterly Journal of Geological Society of London, Vol. 13.