The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1859-04-12
Great Volcanic Eruption.

| we nave dates from ltonolula To th(
18th of February. The main item Of news
is that tho volcano of Mauna Loa, on the
Island of Hawaii, the largest in the San
wich group, has broken out in an eruption
of unparalleled grandeur. On tho noun.
tain side, 10000 feet above the level ol
The sea, and 1000 below tho snow cover
ed summit, the.lava bursts out squirting up
like a fountain in jets-sometimes 500 feet
high, never less than $50 and then runs
in stream of liquid fire, half mile wide,
3s miles to tho sea, sweeping everything
before it.
All accounts represent it as the most
magnificent that has occurred in our is
lands within present memory. The heav
ems at night arc fully illuminated for hun
dreds Of miles around, and the sea is lit up
with long, slantng beams, The smoke
has been sensbly preceptible hero, at a
distance of two hundred miles to wind
ward and the light diserned. Out at Maui
distance half way to Hawaii, tho illumina-
tion has been splendid. AS spectator
informed me, it was like the blaze of a
thatchcd house within stones throw.
The Mauna Loa, on the Hawaii the
most modern island Of the group, is the
latest formed of Hawaii mountains, and is
yet incomplete. Viewing it from Hilo, it
presents the outline Of bow slightly bent,
and at that distance, SO regular an arc does
its really ragged outline appear, that an
artist who should truly represent it
would be thought not to have copied ma
ture. 1t appears to belong, hence its
name. Loa. But viewing it from Wainea,
on the right from Coma, opposite and from
Kau, on the left of Hilo, our mountain pre-.
sents nowhere its end, and then you con-
ceive that it is an imense dome. That
seemingly low arch is the highest of Pa
citic Ocean Mountains. But it is yet in its
giant youth. Every new eruption accu-
mulatcs new masses upon its brown crown.
So the eruption is not depleating one by
which the mountain throws out its own
bowels, but one Of building up, out of ma
terials drawn from depths so deep and res
orvoirs so vast, that this vast bass of noun
tain is but nipple on the outlet of its dis
charging vent.
A gentleman who visited the volcano
on the 18th of Feb. writes as followsi
Our path was rocky and steep, and VIC
had time to see and enjoy all these things.
So ascending with varying scene and
climate we reached camping ground at
distance of perhaps sixteen miles from the
beach, ten miles short of the orifce Of the
volcano and some thirty miles from where
it discharge into the sea, ard near to the
flowing lava. Night was tho time for OBJ
servation. The before black mass then
shono out in hundreds Of fiery illumina-
ton, and the fountain head disclosed it.
self be jet de Eau varying from 200 to
500 feet in height, and in diameter of base
800 feet, as we conjectured from a exam
ination at that distance, through our glass
eS.
The front Of the flow is about 5000 feet
in width, and slowly, irresstibly pushes
forward its high, red wall of fire, rising
over hills and falling over rrecipices with
calm, irresistible power, which hambles and
belittles all human efforts. Above the
crater rose continually dense column Of
smoke to the height of, perhaps 10000
feet. There was not however, with this as
with the eruptions Of Etna and Vesvius,
discharge cinders, nor preceptibly even OF
steam. The discharge was confined to the
dense, pure and perfectly fused heavy lava,
and two heavy bouders projected far above
the fountain, and falling sometimes back
again into the caldron, and sometimes
without the rim, down which they rolled
for time glowing and visible, soor turn
ing black and lost to our sight. More like
an Icelandie Geyser, as represented in our
biographies than anything else was
this election at the source--now rising,
now falling, in columns, uniting dividing,
and jetting in spire, pyramids, cones and
columns. Noxt the crater, the flow is not
not visible from below, being in the val
ley, after which it divides itself into MI.
merous streams, occupying five or six miles
in breadth, and the decent being precipit-
Gus, the flow is rapid; but it soon reaches
surface Of light decent and here The flow
is slow and the streams mainly concentra-
ted into one. Occasionally cascade was
to be observed. Conceive Trenton Falls
metamorphosed into fall not of sparkling
foaming, white water, but Of fluid iron,
going over with sullen pitch, bearing along
cakes of block, CONCEALED lava as of ice. -
Set this scene against the great side Of the
mountain, in the night, only lighted by its
own fires, wreathed by its own fires,
wreathed by its own smoke, and you have
what we saw that night from our noun
tain camps. Not far below the crater, one
Of the new side streams had been damned
up until lake had accumulated behind
obstruction, and the weight broke it down
and the released mass rushed down with
a tremendous noise and fury through the
the thick Jungle, cutting down the trees,
rolling of huge boulders from it's front of
twenty five feet high, resembling a pile of