NATURE'S PYROTECHNICS.
As we sat at breakfast at Kamuela on Thursday morning, January loth, 1907, the Chinese cook remarked, "Plenty fire on Mauna Loa last night." True enough, as several servants re ported, though but few others at Kamuela saw it. * * * On Saturday night at our home in Kona the glow was bright but well down on the side of Mauna Loa. The flow had evidently pro ceeded underground and broken out afresh at an elevation of per haps 7,000 or 8,000 feet near Puu Ohohia. From this later open ing has poured the fiery flood which in two streams has buried the Government road, destroyed the telephone line, and it is re ported, has again united below, spreading over the flatter coun try some little way above the ocean.
Earthquakes have been slight and few in number in Kona, though many little ones were reported in Kau. The earthquakes began just a little before the outbreak, and the last one observed by me occurred on Sunday, January Since then the flow has been dying, and after two weeks from the beginning the flow is reported over, and our energetic Telephone Company has man aged to string its wires across the Manuka flow, ready to open communication again with Kau.
Sometime during the night of Saturday, January 12th, the first stream crossed the road, at an elevation of perhaps 1,800 feet above the sea, for on Sunday morning no telephone message could be sent over the telephone line to Kau. Early Monday we started for the scene, some thirty-six miles from home and about five miles south of the Kona line. A few had visited this flow on Sunday night, but Monday was the greatest day of all—both for magnificence and variety of display and for the crowd present, which I estimated at about one hundred and fifty. All kinds of vehicles were seen in use, from an automobile to an old family brake driven tandem, with one boy perched on the forward horse. The stream of people poured in until midnight.
We arrived just at dark and prepared to camp under the open sky a fourth of a mile from the flow, on a little rise beside the tent of Mr. Aungst, who had remained over in charge of the tele phone. Every one could enjoy this most awe-inspiring sight, al though it was a quiet enjoyment as far as noise went. The flow was also quiet, for but little sound could be heard beyond the con stant clink of falling stones as the front wall of solid fire advanced, or an occasional rushing sound from the central molten stream, or a faint explosion of gas. We could enjoy it because we were
all in comparative safety and the flow was doing very little dam age because of its position on still older flows.
Once before I have felt something of the same awe, and that was on beholding the results of the wearing force of water, as viewed from the brink of that stupendous canyon of the Colorado River in Arizona, which is over a mile deep and hundreds of miles long. Here in Mauna Loa we have the absolutely irresistible force of fire, and one felt it overwhelmingly as he watched it ad vance straight towards him. As I stood but a few feet in front of the slowly advancing snout of this writhing fiery monster, I could only say to myself, "What is man, that thou art mindful of of him ?" and feel with Micah, "Behold, Jehovah cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be melted under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as was before the fire, as waters that are poured down a steep place." And to remember that the other side of this same mountain summit is covered with glisten ing snow ! We had hoped to reach the first flow which had crossed the road already, but a glance at the one now advancing showed us how fool-hardy would be such an attempt. The first flow was in Ka huku, in the flow of 1887 and overlapping it toward Kona. This was reported to have flowed almost molten and very rapidly, and it was said to be from a half to a mile or more wide. Our flow was about six miles this way on the Manuka lands. At 5:30 P. M. when we arrived, it was perhaps a half mile above the road, but by midnight it was far below. It crossed the road about 9 P. M., covering the road where we stood so shortly before to a depth of twenty-five feet and more with its glowing rocks. The very front part was an almost perpendicular wall about fifteen feet high, for it did not quite reach the top of the eighteen foot telephone poles, which were soon in a blaze as the wires parted.