KILAUE'A, a vast crater in the e. part of the island of Hawaii, 10 m. from the sea, on the e. slope of the great volcano of Mona Loa, 4,000 ft. above the sea, and 9,800 ft_ below the summit of Mona Loa. It is 30 m. by bridle-road from the seaport of Hilo, from which it is usually visited. The entire island of Hawaii is one Vast pile of lava, the outflow of many craters, of Which the summit crater of Mona Loa is the greatest, and Kilauea, near the base of the mountain, the most constantly active. The latter forms no cone of itself, but is a great sink on the side of the mountain, in the midst of grazing lands, trees, and ferns on the side to the windward of the crater. This sink is 3. m. long, 2 wide, and in the parts where the lava is not boiling from 500 to 800 ft. deep. The floor of the crater, being formed by the streams that constantly flow and cool in one or another part of it, is being filled up slowly in periods of moderate activity, but is liable to fall in or sink at any time, especially during great volcanic activity when eruptions elsewhere draw off the lava from below. At the e. end of this great sink are the pots and lakes of boilino. -lava, around which are low conical slopes of lava. and ashes, but nowhere rising to the level of the ledges that surround the crater-sink. The lava in one or another of these little lakes is in perpetual ebullition, and flows out through a subterranean channel under the rim of the active craters to the lower level of the main crater-basin, forming small or large streams upon its black surface, which coot.
quickly and can be walked upon within a day or two after the lava ceases to flow.. Travelers walk for miles upon these streams where the red, partly cooled lava can be• seen in the crevices under their feet. In 1868, when Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)• visited the crater, it showed signs of unusual violence in its eruptions, and bid fair to fill and overflow the great sink; but a mud and lava eruption broke out on a grazing slope of the mountain 20 m. away, when the unusual activity of this crater ceased, while the mud flow submerged a valuable grazing country and made its way down the moun tain far into the sea. The great eruptions from this crater were those of 1789, 1823, 1832, 1840, and 1868. There seems to be no subterranean connections between the sources of the eruptions from Mona Loa and Kilauea, each having its periods of terrible activity without seeming to affect the other. There is (1874) a pleasant rustic inn or volcano-house on the ledge overlooking the crater, and the road from Hilo to the crater furnishes an example of an ancient Hawaiian paved road, 6 ft. wide, that rises and falls. on a straight course over the low lava ridges towards the crater. The crater is about 250 m. by sea from Honolulu. A steamer plies irregularly between that city and Hilo.