Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1859-04-29
GREAT ERUPTION OF hArsa LOi.


The volcano on the island of Haawii
Gone of the Sandwich Islands) has just
experienced one of its grandest eruptions.
1t commenced on the Esd of January.
without any of the premonitory symp-
toms of earthquakes and subterranean
noises, pouring a rapid stream of lava
from an opening about 10000 feet above
the level of the sea. The stream of
burning lava reached the sea in the space
of Ave days, flowing forty miles, filling
up an immense valley in the mountains
and sending off many side streams. IT
Is supposed that the lava has covered
about thousand square miles of the sur
tace of the Island, At Lahaina, a dis
tance of over one hundred miles from
the crater, on Saturday night, the 29,h
january, the volcano was distinctly visi-
bic Illuminating one-third of the heavens
like that of an immense and neighboring
confiagration and from elevated posi-
tons, it is asserted that the shoots of IL
quid flame could be seen at intervals, as
the immense cauldron boiled and bub-
bled.' The sea was lighted up with the
reflection of the flame everywhere with
in one hundred miles of the crater, and
the coasting vessels enjoyed the advant-
age without the presence of full moon.
Lots of dead fish were observed floating
about in the neighborhood of the islands.
both before and since the commencement
OF the eruption, and the inference is,
that they were killed by the submarine
fires or heat connected with the volcano.
A party who visited the mountain
describe the scene as inexpressibly
grand, but language cannot be found to
convey an adequate conception of its i'm
pressiveness. The eruption is on the
west side of Mauna Loa, a new crater,
estimated at five to eight hundred feet
across, having formed there from which
the liquid mass was momentarily elected
in immense jets of a thousand to fifteen
hundred feet high, and falling over the
sides, poured down towards the sea-
Before entering the sea it destroyed
native village and fine grove of cocoa
nut trees, and pouring into the bay, COM
pletely filed up the little harbor of
"alnoualai. The inhabitants of the
hamlet were aroused at midnight. and
had hardly time to escape, leaving their
property to destruction. One young ex-
plorer of the mountain met with a sad
fate, falling down a iagged chasm thir
ty feet in depth and fatally injuring his
spine. A witness of the sublime spec
tacle writes to the New York Tribune:
The front of the floor is about 5000
feet in width, and slowly, irresistibly
pushed forward its high, red wall of fire
rising over hills and falling over preci-
pices with a calm, irresistible power
which humbles and belitlles all human
efforts. Above the crater rose continu-
ally dense column of smoke to the
height of, perhaps 10000 feet. There
was not, however, with this as with the
eruptions of Atna and vesuvius. a dis
charge of cinders, not perceptibly even
of steam. The discharge was confined
to the dense, pure and perfectly fused.
heavy lava, and to heavy boulders pro-
Jected far above the fountain, and falling.
sometimes back again into the cauldron.
and sometimes without tue rim. down
which they rolled, for time glowing and
visible, soon turning black, and lost TO
our sight. More like an Icelandic gey-
ser, as represented in our biographies
than anything else was this election al
the source-now rising, now falling, in
columns, uniting, dividing, and jeiting
in spires, pyramids, cones and columns.
Next the crater the flow is not visible
from below, being in a valley, after which
it divides itself into numerous streams.
occupying five or six miles in breadth.
and the descent being precipitous, the
hog is rapid but it soon reaches a sur
face Of light descent, and here the flow
is slow and streams mainly concentrated
into one. Occasionally cascade was to
be observed. Conceive a Trenton fall
metamorphosed into fall, not Of spark
ling, fOaming, white water, but Of fluid
iron, going over with sullen pitch, bear
ing along cakes Of black, CONCEALED lava
as Of ice. Set this scene against the
great side Of the mountain, in the night.
only lighted by its own fires, wreatbed
By its own smoke, and you have what
we saw that night from our mountain
camp. Not far below the crater, one oil
the new side streams had been damned
up until lake had accumulated behind