KAUAI.
Kauai is the "Garden Island" of the archipelago because the rocks have been disintegrated into soils more effectually than elsewhere. The relief map by W. T. Pope of the Normal School has been reduced in the photograph to about one-fifth of its ori ginal dimensions, Plate 5, and shows well the principal physio graphic features. The shape is between circular and quadrangu lar, over twenty-five miles in diameter, with an extension of swampy and low marine ground upon the west side. No very extensive explorations have been made, but we have the statement by Professor J. D. Dana in the Report of the United States Ex ploring Expedition, 1840, that the layers of basalt are thicker in the center and dip outwardly toward the sea in all directions. Waialeale is the highest point in the island, 5,250 feet, obtusely pointed, covered by bogs, wet most of the time and very rarely visited, certainly by no scientific person, so far as the records go. The principal streams start from near the summit : three of them entering Hanalei Bay upon the north, one flowing on the east through Lihue, two to the south. The McBryde Sugar Planta tion derives power for its operations from an artificial waterfall upon the Wainiha stream only one and a half miles from Hanalei Bay. The water is taken from the stream at an elevation of seven hundred feet, is carried in a ditch for four and one-half miles, and falls five hundred and sixty-five feet to the wheels. The power is conveyed by a pole-line for thirty-four miles over rough mountain ranges considerably to the east of the Wainiha to the mill.
Hanalei Bay upon the north shore seems to be a drowned val ley, as the intervale extends miles up the stream, like the broad low plains near the mouths of large streams in more northern lati tudes. On the opposite shore is the Hanapepe valley entering a bay in a similar manner, and is spoken of as one of the most ex tensive and beautiful upon the island. Nawilili Bay upon the southeast is the principal landing place for visitors from Oahu, and it seems to skirt the edge of a plateau two hundred or three hundred feet high. The Wailua River has a noted cataract upon it two and a half miles from the sea. The smaller streams are generally nearly closed by bars of coral sand.
The distinction between the windward and leeward sides is very plain, as made known by the erosion. It is emphasized upon the
Government map by the primary division into the two districts of Puna and Kona. Lihue, Kawaihau and Hanalei show a greater amount of denudation than the slopes of Waimea, and in this last region the contrast in the amount of excavation is very great be tween the two sides of the Waimea River, the west side being a cliff and the east a gradual slope from the dividing range seven or eight miles distant. There must be a small wind-gap where the road from Hanalei passes over the divide to the Waimea, whose altitude is 4,525 feet and bears the name of Kilohana. Sugar plantations adjoin the coast on every side except the northwest, Napali, where cliffs from one to two thousand feet high constitute the shore line.
Between Nawilili and Anahola Bays there is an extensive plain from two hundred to three hundred feet high cut down through soft material forming canyons for the rivers. The earlier authors ascribed this material to the decay of the basalts, which came from ancient volcanoes in the interior. Many of the layers seem to be the result of decay, as they are filled with the concentric boulder like masses somewhat related to the columnar structure ; but inter bedded with them are layers of earth better comparable with vol canic ashes which may also cover the surface. It is not strange that ashes should present the slight inclinations of from one to five degrees commonly noted here. The relief map shows in Lihue one large volcanic cone, Kilohana, nearly a mile in diameter, and other smaller ones. Why have not those plains been made up of the ejections from the several secondary volcanoes, like alluvial fans, rather than from the older ones discharging lava ? The prevalence of volcanic ashes has been proved for the active and extinct vents in Hawaii and Oahu, and should surely be looked for upon any of the other islands. Their recency would seem to be proved by the steep walls of the canyons in the loose materials. There would therefore seem to be two classes of volcanic dis charges in Kauai, first the underlying basalts making up the great dome of Waialaele, and second many secondary craters, situated upon the flanks and eroded basins of the earlier lavas, and repre senting an inferior degree of activity.