SANDWICH ISLANDS are a group of islands situated in the northern part of the Pacific, between 18° 55' and 22° 20' N. lat., 154' 50' and 160° 40' W. lone. They extend within these limits in a slightly curved line from south-east to north-west, and are thirteen in number; eight of them ADO of moderate size, and the other five small. The larger islands are Hawaii, Maul, Tahaurawo, Renal, Morokal, Oahu, Tenet, and Nihau.
Bewail, formerly called Otehyhee, the most south-eastern island, is the largest of the whole group, and indeed twice as large as all the rest together. In form it approaches to a triangle, and is nearly 100 miles long from south to north, and about 80 miles wide iu the broadest part. The surface is probably about 5000 square miles. The interior is occupied by a table-land 8000 feet above the sea-level, and almost entirely unknown, there being no road over it from one side of the island to the other. According to the scanty information collected from the natives by Ellis, it is chiefly covered with lava and ashes, but in some places overgrown with wanti-trees, or paper-mulberry trees. The edge of this table-land toward the east is about 25 miles from the sea, but on the west and south it approaches somewhat nearer the shore. Near these edges are situated three volcanoes, of which the highest, Nouns Kea, is near the eastern declivity of the table-land. Ita summit attains an elevation of 13,587 feet above the sea-level, but it is extinct. Near the south-western corner of the table-land is the Mouna Roa, whose summit is 13,175 feet above the sea. No eruption of this mountain is recorded, but it does not appear to be extinct. The present crater has a circumference of about six miles and a quarter, and the ancient orifice is not lees than 24 miles round. On the western edge of the tableland is the volcano called Mouna .11uararai, whose elevation is estimated at 10,000 feet.. It is still active, the last eruption having tiken place in 1800. On the table land there are many other conical peaks, which are evidently extinct volcanoes. But the most remarkable volcano is that of Kirauea, which I. at no great distance from the eastern declivity of Mouna Rae, but properly on the sonthern declivity of the table-land. This
volcano is not, like other volcanoes, a conical mountain, but a depres sion below the general surface of the slope, of somewhat irregular shape, with almost perpendicular aides. The elevation of the elope where this vast pit °ovum is 3873 feet above the sea level. The surface of tho volcanic lakes is about 850 feet below the upper surface. The crater contains two lakes, the smaller of which is nearly of a circular form, and 319 yards across • the larger is 1190 yards long, and in one part about 700 yards wide. These lakes are vast caldrons of lava in a state of furious ebullition, sometimes spouting up to the height of 20 and oven 70 feet. The fiery waves run with a steady current at the rate of nearly three miles and a quarter per hour south ward, enter a wide abyss, and fall into the eoa in 19° 11' 51" N. lat. All the country round this volcano is covered with lava. The volcano of Kirauea has from time immemorial been prodigiously active. In 17S7 it overflowed, when a dreadful eruption took place, and lasted seven days.
From the edges of the table-land, which are about 8000 or 9000 feet high, the country has a gradual slope to the sea. The higher part of this slope, from the tahle-land to the distance of about four miles from the shore, where it sinks down to 1500 feet, is covered with dense forests, consisting chiefly of several species of acacia, which attain a great size, and of which the canoes of the natives are made. The underwood is tree fern, from four to flirty feet high, and clothed to the top with an almost endless variety of climbing plants. The soil on which these woods grow lies on lava, which frequently rises above it. The tract which lies west of Byron's Bay, or Waiakea, and extends towards the base of the volcano of Mouna Kea, is thickly inhabited and well cultivated; but nearly contiguous to it on the south, and adjacent to the volcano of Kirauea, is a desert of rugged lava, extending 40 miles along the shores, where no cultivation occurs, and which is only inhabited by fishermen. The north-eastern coast is bold and steep; on the western side the land rises with a gentle slope from the shore.