MOKUAINEOWE0 IN 1896.
Dr. Friedlaender had visited Vesuvius and Etna several times and was familiar with volcanic scenes. He had also visited the summit caldera in 1893, when it was inactive.
April 21, 1896, when in Kona, he noticed a large white cumulus cloud very high up on Mauna Loa, and in the evening from Honomalino a bright fire reflection. He ascended from Napoo poo, starting from the house of Mr. John Gaspar with his host and Charley Ka for guides. The start was on horseback, April 25th. They ascended through the forest to the height of 7,500 feet, where the horses were left behind ; though it seemed possible to use them nearly to the summit, after some knowledge of the route had been obtained.
The cloud over Mauna Loa was a cumulus of the well known shape of the Italian pine : a large mass of vapor floating to an enormous height and connected with the mountain only by a narrow trunk of smoke. "The afternoon sun illumined the cloud ; its snowy white slowly turned yellowish, then, about sunset, crim son, and soon the volcanic glare became visible ; first the narrow pillar, then the whole cloud formation becoming aglow from the incandescent matter beneath.".
The vegetation dwindles at about 3,00o meters; at 3,50o meters it had disappeared, and it was possible to choose pahoehoe instead of as for the path. At the height of 13,000 feet the mule and at tendants were left. The summit plain is almost level, and the opposite side is first visible.
It was easy at this time to compare Mokuaweoweo with Kilauea. Both are of nearly the same shape and size. The longer dia meters have the same compass course. Both have their highest points upon the west side ; and the walls are nearly perpendicu lar and the places of the most comfortable descent are on the N.E. and S.W. corners. The area of Mokuaweoweo is smaller and the walls higher than in Kilauea. Also the lava lakes are situated similarly near the southern walls.
The lava lake was "very large," almost level with the general floor, surrounded by low vertical walls. The surface was crusted over and then broken up into numerous blocks as has been de scribed for Halemaumau. There were two large and one small lava fountain, the former of which played regularly and uninter ruptedly. Their height was estimated to be forty-five to fifty feet, their temperature was very high as it was possible to use the light for photography in the night. The full moon and the fountains affected the photograph plate almost alike. Dr. Friedlaender did not descend into the pit. He believed that the lavas of the higher crater contained more gases and had a higher temperature than Kilauea. He suggested that this supposed fact would tend to ex plain the enormous differences of level between the two volcanoes. —From Thrum's Annual.
Several gentlemen visited Mokuaweoweo while this eruption was in progress, and one of them, Daniel Logan, has written the following statement of some of the interesting phenomena seen. The lake was said to be 2,000 feet long and 1,500 feet wide. "The
fountains of Mokuaweoweo are different from those of Kilauea when in activity, in that they preserve their relative positions toward each other and their environment, besides being in con stant and uniform action. When I say uniform I mean that, although their ebullitions are varying in violence, as well as in height of projection, the changes proceed in steady alternation and there is never a moment of total subsidence. In the lake of Hale maumau the fountains were constantly changing in position and number both, and sometimes for several minutes the entire sur face will be crusted over, showing scarcely a streak of fire. The forms assumed by the fountains of Mokuaweoweo are of exceed ing beauty. Each one shows a multiplied facade of spines com posed of thousands of bunched jets of orange color, the spine to the extreme left the tallest and the others—perhaps eight or ten— diminishing to the right. The component jets fall inward, when their upward impetus is lost, in graceful parabolas excepting when, at every major ejection, there is a fierce explosive-like projection outwardly from the main spire. The whole effect is that of an illuminated Gothic cathedral's front. In ascent the velocity of the ejection is that of a rocket multiplied. Stupendous pro jective force is what impresses one together with the extra ordinary pyrotechnical beauty of the display. At the bases of the fountain there is an intermittent boiling and surging, and a sullen roar of awful majesty rises and falls like that of the ocean beating on a rock-bound shore. The jets are intermingled with a profusion of dark angular projectiles, giving the appearance of a shower of brick as they fall, which I am informed is pumice stone. In line with the large fountains are small ones—merely miniature in comparison—which play at frequent intervals like those of Kilauea, right out to the edge of the lake. There is a steady as flow from the fierce caldron—which is fast covering a deposit of pahoehoe. * * * We see its outer edge being pushed slowly but surely by the grinding and rolling mass be hind toward the lower bank beneath us. The van of the move ment is marked with crimson fire, and the whole area of the flow is streaked and dotted with similar evidences of fiery vitality. While we are gazing in raptures on the spectacle, a phenomenon of wonderful interest, noted by observers of previous eruptions, is repeatedly witnessed. The heat produces a fierce whirlwind at the opposite side of the crater. It is shaped like a pillar, slender and pale brown, high as the cliff opposite, or a thousand feet, and symmetrical as a Corinthian pillar. At is rushes along at galloping speed, with a spiral motion, its lower end rips up the massive lava crust in huge slabs and tosses them aside like the action of a steamer's propeller in friable ice. * * * The height of the fountains is estimated at five hundred feet.