The Daily empire. (Dayton, Ohio) 1865-1867, 1866-04-19
THE DAILY EMPIRE.
H. n. ROBINSON,
A Fiery Fountain.

Ta q. A Fiery Fountain.
A jet of lava Of more stupcndous propor-
tion than any ever conceived of is describ-
cd by Mr.. Coan, in the Honolulu Friend, Of
Mauna Loa, on the Island of Hawaii:
The eruption commenced near the sum-
NIT of the mountain, and only five or six
miles southeast of the eruption of 1913. For
two days this summit crater sent down its
burning floods along the northeastern slope
of the mountain; then suddenly the valve
closed, and the great furnace apparently
ceased to blast. After thirty hours the
flsia was seen to burst out of the eastern
side of the mountain, about midway from
the top TO the base.
1t would seem that the summit lava had
found subterranean tunnel for halfway
down the mountain, when coming to u weak
point, or meeting with some obstruction, IL
burst up vertically, sending a column of
incandescent fusia q thousand feet high into
the air This fire-jet was about one hum
dred feet In diameter. and 1t was sustained
for twenty days and nights, varying In
hight from five hundred to one thousand
feet.
The disagreement from the mountain
slide was often with terrific explosions
which shook the hills, and with detonations
which were heard for forty miles This
column of liquid fire was an object of sur
passing brilliancy, of intense and awful
grandeur. As the jet issued from the
awful orifice 1t was at white heat. As II
ascended higher and higher 1t Redeemed like
fresh blood, deepening It's color. until, in its
descent, much of 1t assumed the color of
clotted gore.
In few days it had raised cone some
three hundred feet high around the burning
orifice, and, as the showers of burning
minerals fell in livid torrents upon the cone,
it became one vast heap of glowing Goals,
flashing and quivering with restless action,
and sending out the heat of ten thousand
furnaces in intense blast. The struggles in
disgorging the fiery masses, the upward
rush Of the column, the force which raised
1t thousand vertical feet, and the contin-
uous falling back of thousands of tuns of
mineral fusia into the burning throat of the
crater, and over cone of glowing miner
ais, one mile in circumference, was sight
to inspire awe and terror. attended with
explosive shocks which seemed to rend the
mural ribs of the mountain, and sounds to
wake the dead and startle the spirits in
Hades. t''i
, From this fountain river of fire went
rushing and leaping down the mountain
with amazing velocity, filling up basins
and ravines, dashing over preeipiccs, and
exploding rocks until 1t reached the forests
at the base Of the mountain, where 1t burn
I
evaporating the water of the streams and
pools, cutting down the trees, and sending
up clouds of smoke and steam in murky
columns of fleecy wreaths TO heaven.
All Eastern Hawaii was sheen of light,
and our night was turning into day. So
great was the illumination at night, that
one could read without IA lamp, and labor,
travelling and recreation, might go on as In
the daytime. Mariners at sea saw the
light at two hundred miles distance. 1t
was pyrotechnical display, more magnifi-
cent and marvellous than was ever made by
an earthly monarch. In the daytime the
atmosphere for thousands of square miles,
would be filled with murky haze, through
which the sun-beams shed pale and sickly
4 light. Smoke, steam, gases, ashes, cinders
furnace or capillary or tilamentous vltri-
/ fications called Pele's hair--floated in the
air, sometimes spreading out like fan,
sometimes careering in swift currents upon
the wind, or gyrating in ever changing
colors in the titful breezes. i--.
The point from which the fire-fountain
issued Is ten thousand feet above the level
I, Of the sea, thus making the igneous pillar a
distinct object of observation, along the
whole eastern coast Of Hawaii.
4 During the eruption the writer made an
excursion 10 its source. After three days
of hard struggle in the jungle and over
! fields, ridges and hills of bristling scoria,
he arrived, near sunset, at the scene OF ac-
ton. All night long he stood as near the
glowing pillar as the vehement heat would
allow. listening to the startling explosions
and the awful roar of the molten column,
as it rushed upward thousand feet, and
| fell back in y fiery avalanche which made
the mountain tremble. r...s
i 1t was such scene as few mortals ever
witnessed. There was no sleep for the
spectator. The fierce, red glare, the sub
terranean mutterings and strugglings, the
rapid explosions of gases, the rushes and
roar, the sudden and startling bursts, as of
crashing tiihnder-all, all were awe-in-
spring, and all combined to render the
scene one of indescribable briiliancy and of
terrible sublimity. The river of fire from
the fountain flowed about thirty-ilve miles,
and stopped within ten miles of Hilo. Had
the fountain played ten days longer, II
would probably have reached the shore.
What an Ex-Rebel Is Doing.
John ii. Reagan, formerly the rebel Post