Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1859-03-31

Great Volcanic Eruption on the Sandwich
1slands---TOtal Destruction of a Village.
By way of the San Francisco Herald. Homo
lulu dates to the 18th of February are received.
A terrific volcanic eruption had taken place on
Manua Loa. January 23d theJSVhole mountain
and surrounding atmosphere were lighted up,
and on the 26th the sight is described as one
of the most awfully sublime scenes ever wit
messed. A person who visited the scene of the
eruption gives the Honolulu Advertiser a long
ascOunt of the state of the country and appear
ance of the crater. We quote
On the afternoon of our arrival at the camp
ing ground, new stream starting some few
miles below the crater, which had evidently
| been damned up by some obstruction, came
rushing down with tremendous noise and fury
through the thick jungle which lay in its track,
burning the cracking trees, and sending up for
time thick smoke almost as dense as that
from the crater. This stream, from the time it
broke away from its embankment, moved along
two miles an hour till it reached the vicinity
of our camp, when its progress was checked,
and it moved not more than a quarter of mile
an hour. But it formed grand sight. Here
was a stream of lava running over the plain,
twenty to twenty-five feet in hight, and an
eighth of mile in width, Though its width va
ried great deal, 1t waJ a mass OF pile of red
hot stones, resembling pile of Goals on fire,
borne along by the liquid lava stream under
meath. As it moved slowly along, large red
boulders would roll down the sides, breaking
into a thousand small stones, crushing and
burning the trees which lay in the track.
It is impossible to give true conception of
the immense force and power of this lava
stream, bearing along, as it does, an almost
inconceivable mass. 1t reminds US most vivid
ly of the breaking up of the ice in large river,
only the imagination must stretch the compari-
son, and suppose the ice piled up thirty feet,
and thus borne a!ong by the current beneath,
the whole width of the river moving at the
same time, crashing and breaking, and piling
up cones and irregular masses on top. But
even this comparison is far below the reality;
to be conceived it must be seen.
A correspondent writing from Waimea, Ha-
waii, February 4th, says the burning crater
seems to be constantly enlarging and throwing
up its volumes of liquid fire above the mouth
of the crater, will not venture TO say how
high, and the fiery stream rolled onward and
onward, still adding grandeur and terror as it
proceeded, TIL, about sunrise on the morning
of the 2lst, the stream was compelled, though
reluctantly, to stop, by meeting the waters of
the ocean. Even then its resistless and opPos-
ing energy carried it some distance into tie
sea.
The poor inhabitants of Wainanalii, the
name of the village where the fire reached the
ocean, were aroused at the midnight hour by
the kissing and roaring of the approaching FIRE,
and had but just time to save themselves
Some of the houses of the inland portion of the
II i
mates were aware of the danger. Wainanalii
is near the northern boundary of North Kona,
and about twelve or fourteen miles from Hawai-
hae. 1t is, of course, all destroyed, and its
pleasant little hsrbor is filled up with lava
The whole distance of the flow from the crater
to the sea is some forty miles.
Last night February 81 the volcano was in
full blast, and the burning stream seems to have
taken another direction.