THE ERUPTION OF 1840.
This was the most important of all the discharges from Kilauea since the country has been known to us. Our sources of informa tion are the statements of Rev. Titus Coan, Captain Charles Wilkes and Professor J. D. Dana. None of these gentlemen were on the spot at the time, but obtained their information from good authorities while the phenomena were fresh in mind.
Rev. Mr. Coan happened to be absent in Oahu at the time of the eruption. He had visited the volcano before and was familiar with its features ; so that he was qualified to test the statements of the natives. The great basin below the black ledge had been filled to overflowing, and as much as fifty feet thickness had accumulated above the platform. The whole area of the pit is represented as an entire sea of ignifluous matter, with waves dashing against the walls sufficiently energetically as to detach great masses of the overhanging rocks. No one dared to ap proach near the fiery mass. Mr. Coan believed the statements correct, because not a single part of the lava seen after the erup tion was like what had been visible before : all had been melted down and recast.
It was May 3oth when the inhabitants of Puna first observed indications of fire. On the following day the fire greatly aug mented. On the third day, June 1st, the lava began to flow off in a northeasterly direction. By the evening of June 3d the burning river had reached the sea and discharged over a cliff near Nana wale for three weeks. There were slight and repeated shocks of earthquakes near the volcano, for several successive days ; but none were noticed at Hilo.
The first appearance of the lava was at a small pit about six miles distant from Kilauea, in the forest. The lava rose in this opening about three hundred feet, and then sank down when there was a discharge below. Remnants of this material were ob served by Mr. Coan. Then there were other small ejections in fissures nearby. Others appeared, some two or three miles away, and finally upon June 1st began the principal outflow, twenty-seven miles from Kilauea, eleven from the sea, and 1,244 feet above tide water.
A further account of the eruption is given in the words of Mr. Coan : The source of the eruption is in a forest and was not dis covered at first ,though several foreigners have attempted it.
"From Kilauea to this place the lava flows in a subterranean gal lery probably at the depth of a thousand feet, but its course can be distinctly traced all the way, by the rending of the crust of the earth into innumerable fissures and by the emission of smoke, steam and gases. The eruption in this old crater is small, and from this place the stream disappears again for the distance of a mile or two when the lava again gushes up and spreads over an area of about fifty acres. Again it passes underground for two or three miles, when it reappears in another old wooded crater, consuming the forest and partly filling up the basin. Once more it disappears, and flowing in a subterranean channel, cracks and breaks the earth, opening fissures from six inches to ten or twelve feet in width, and sometimes splitting the trunk of a tree so ex actly that its legs stand astride at the fissure. At some places it is impossible to trace the subterranean stream on account of the impenetrable thicket under which it passes. After flowing under ground several miles, perhaps six or eight, it again broke out like an overwhelming flood, and sweeping forest, hamlet, plantation and everything before it, rolled down with resistless energy to the sea, where leaping a precipice of forty or fifty feet, it poured itself in one vast cataract of fire into the deep below, with loud detona tions, fearful hissings, and a thousand unearthly and indescrib able sounds. Imagine to yourself a river of fused minerals, of the breadth and depth of Niagara, and of a deep gory red, falling in one emblazoned sheet, one raging torrent into the ocean. * * * The atmosphere in all directions was filled with ashes, spray, gases, etc., while the burning lava as it fell into the water was shivered into millions of minute particles, and being thrown back into the air fell in showers of sand on all the surrounding country. The coast was extended into the sea for a quarter of a mile, and a pretty sand beach and a new cape were formed. Three hills of scoria and sand were also formed in the sea, the lowest about two hundred and the highest about three hundred feet.