HONOLULU, a seaport in let. 21° 18' n., and long. 157° 55' w., on the south-western or leeward coast of ()coal], one of the Sandwich islands (q.v.), is perhaps the only spot in Polynesia that can fairly claim to be reckoned as an integral part of the world of commerce and civilization. Being the seat of government, as well as the center of trade, it is, in every tense, the metropolis of its own group, which is at once the largest and the most important of all the kindred clusters. But beyond this. its intrinsic advantages, and the absence, or at least the distance, of rivals along the surrounding waters, in any direction, have combined to render it an entrepot between the shores of the Pacific. Besides attracting numbers of whalers for repairs and supplies, Honolulu occupies a most convenient position on each of the three great thoroughfares of its own giant ocean. Though Ooehu, in common with the rest of the cl.ain, is evidently of volcanic formation, yet the reef, which forms the breakwater of the harbor of Honolulu, is of coral formation. The temperature of the town ranges between 67°.9 in Jan., and
83°.2 in Aug.; so that, roughly computed, the annual mean is 75°.55, with a divergence in either direction of only 7°.65. The tropical heat is modified by periodical north easters. The population, numbering fully 20,000, consists chiefly of natives, the foreign element of it counting about a tenth, and of these a good many are naturalized subjects from the United States of America. Honolulu is visited annually by about 300 vessels of various sizes, many of them being whalers. This mart of traffic has, for seventy years, maintained the unity, and, through the unity, the peace of the once independent nod hostile tribes of the Hawaiian archipelago. In Honolulu are to be found consuls from the United States, Chili, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, and Peru.