LETTER FROM E. D. BALDWIN.
I believe you asked about the flow from the i868 crack ! Would say that in my survey, we camped about two weeks, a mile below where the main flow left the crack ; our camp being located mauka of Puu Nahaha, an old fault line, just two miles opposite the Kapapala Ranch houses. Just back of the Halfway House, the lava made two large spurts; the upper one welling up through the crack and covering probably three acres ; about one-half mile below this, the lava spurted up through the crack and ran for several hundred feet, then it seems to have run under ground, until it reached the point mentioned above, about a mile above our camp, where the whole appearance of the flow, is that of a sud den opening of the crack along its whole line, and the lava flow ing out in a great belch, twenty or thirty feet high, and rushing towards the sea, mostly along the line of the crack. A portion of the flow turned off towards the 1823 flow, striking several old red cones, in its path, and completely plastering the upper side of these cones with new black lava. One old red cone especially was very noticeable, it stood right in the line of the rush of the lava, which struck the upper side, and poured over the upper rim and through the old crater in the same, leaving the lower side of this cone untouched ; as the high rush of lava passed on, it subsided leaving this cone standing at least thirty feet high, with its upper side completely plastered with a layer from one inch to a few inches in thickness, and at the foot of all of the cones, immense grooves in the new lava show the force of the rush of lava as it subsided. I climbed to the top of the cone, and it seemed fully forty feet high on its upper side and highest part where the lava had just reached and splashed over ; on both sides of this highest point, the lava had rushed over and through the crater, breaking away its low est wall on the southwest side. I made several trips to where
the main flow first left the crack, and there is no question what ever about its coming from the crack at the time it opened in 1868, as just above this point is an old red as flow, and all the lava around is the same. Also from this point and all along the crack for miles down the lava spurted into the air, leaving many lava spatters, sometimes several hundred feet from the crack, looking more like our old mud pies, we used to make when boys. These lava spatters are of the same age and nature as the flow ; also the flow can be traced all along, in many places, running back into the crack. The depth of the flow is on an average of one and one-half feet, and in many places looks like paving it is so smooth. Where the flow struck the forest in its line, it is full of tree moulds, many of which stand several feet high ; and were so suddenly formed that they are all capped over with lava on top.
Judge F. S. Lyman of Hilo, was living at Kau, between the Pahala Mill and the 1868 mud flow, at the time of the great 1868 earthquake, and states that all he remembers, is that they saw a great many lights in this direction, the night after the great earth quake, but so upset and taken up were they by the terrific shak ing they got, and subsequent Kahuku flow, from Mauna Loa, that no one paid any attention further to the region of the great crack. My opinion is, that the flow from the i868 crack, was of only a few hours duration, also the whole line of this flow is com pletely hidden from the Kapapala Ranch houses, as well as from Pahala, by the Puu Nahaha fault line, and Puu Ula hills, also intervening forest, so that the lights seen by Mr. Lyman, must have been reflections from the glow holes along the line of flow.