ERUPTION OF 1887.
This was like that of 1868, and broke out low down the mountain at Kahuku. In December, 1886, earthquakes became frequent about Kahuku. These averaged three per diem by the 12th of January. Mr. George Jones counted three hundred and fourteen shocks between 2:12 A. M. of January 17th and 4 A. M. of January 18th ; sixty-seven on the 19th inst., and three on the following day. In Hilea six hundred and eighteen were counted between 2 A. M. of the 16th and 7 P. M. of the 18th. Other persons counted between five hundred and six hundred in the two days and then desisted because the shaking became almost continuous.
Light appeared in the Pohaku o Hanalei south of the summit about 9 P, M. of the 16th. It was also visible from the :8th to the loth. Mr. Baker found the height of the first outbreak on the 16th or 17th to be 11,50o feet. There did not seem to have been much action in Mokuaweoweo. About 4 P. M. of the 18th, with the culmination of the earthquakes, there came an outbreak about 6,5oo feet above and twenty miles from the sea, consisting of fountains of lava rising up from an extended fissure. The flood reached the sea at noon of the 19th about four miles west of the flow of 1868. It extended from three hundred to five hundred feet out to sea without making any cinder cone. By noon of the 24th inst. the flow ceased, but fires were still active along the vent. January loth, parties visiting the spot counted fifteen lava fountains, some of them two hundred feet high along the line of fissure N.3o°E. for two or three miles. Mr. Green says this lava flowed for fifteen days, the latter part of the time under its own cooled crust, and formed an as stream from four hundred feet to two miles wide, and from eight to twenty feet deep.
abridge the following statement from the account of W. E. Rowell, C, E., of Honolulu, who visited the flow January 23d. At the height of 3,40o feet the stream was an open river with well defined banks more than one hundred and fifty feet wide, running at the rate of six to eight miles per hour. The stream was filled with lumps or grains occasionally carry ing black blotches upon its surface. At the height of 4,000 feet there was an immense fountain, rising between walls of fresh lava which had become consolidated, from fifteen to forty feet high. The lava spouted up like a jet of steam, whose spray fell to the ground, solidified with lapilli. The main fountain occupied a length of more than one hundred feet along the channel. Two other fountains were also observed,
one above and the other below the one first seen.
Rev. E. P. Baker visited this flow on the 28th inst. with others. They found the head of the flow 5,70o feet above the sea, sixteen miles by pedometer from Jones' Ranch and above the timber among sparse ohia. It had formed five small cones in the line of a fissure at least three miles long. They saw a fountain playing one hundred and fifty-five feet high from a cone fifty feet high, falling into a basin of lava from whence issued a narrow stream of pure white fire twentv-five feet wide, with a velocity of fifteen miles per hour, Much lapilli was thrown out.
Professor Dana reports from various accounts that the lavas were thrown up as fountains, about eighty feet in diameter and one hundred feet high. One authority, Mr. Spencer, says that on the loth there were fifteen fountains in action, the highest rising to two hundred feet. Blocks of stone weighing tons were moved by the stream. At first the stream was of aa, flowing about one and a half miles per hour. Later the flow was rapid and consisted of pahoehoe. The throw of the earth quakes was to the southeast, and light wooden houses moved eight or ten inches down the slope. In Hilo the oscillations were said to have been from the south-southwest. February loth, Judge D. H. Hitchcock was at the summit and found vapors issuing from large fissures.
From Rev. S. E. Bishop's description in the Hawaiian Ga zette, we quote the following. He arrived off the flow Feb ruary 1st after the lava had mostly ceased running: "At daylight we steamed in some six miles from where we had lain around in the night, The same dark cloud kept its station, marking the course of the hot flow directly beneath it. Mauna Loa's vast dome, now cloudless, was far inland, but dim in the haze. To the right stretched away the long, low south point of the island. inland, about six miles„ the groves and buildings of Jones' Ranch broke the line of the long slope. Close to this could be seen the black line of the pahoehoe flow of 1868, terminating broadly at the sea near Marchant's hill, two or three miles to the right. In front were other and older flows, among which, broader and blacker than the rest, spread ing lawless and ragged down the strong slope to the level bot toms, lay hot and tumultuous the flow of 1887.