The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-05-14
COLUMBIA.
Thursday Morning. May IA, 1858.

1Gauna Loa, in the Sandwich. Is
lands, which has been lately the
aoene of terrific volcanic explosion,
In . high mountain, a little South of
the central part of the island of Ha-
0aii. forty miles from the coast. It
Maa visited by Lieutenant Wilkes, of
Che United States Exploring Expedi-
ton, in 1S40, who asoertained its
height to be 1888 feet. Like the
iaIand on which it is sitpated, it has
bsen built up by volcanic agency.
His craters are numerous, one OF them,
ec t1.e bcttcm ce g=.h:..!.. H':!lcc: H11:!:cc; &c.
sosnded, ia abont fifteen thousand feet
in length and eight Thousand in
width, its West bank being seven hun
5Eed and eighty-iour feet deep, end
leB east bank four hundred and seven
q feet. The great crater, so-called,
n three and half miles long, two
and q half miles wide, over thou
sand feet deep, and the bottom is
said to be occupied by a restless lake
Of liquid fire. It is stated that while
lieutenant Wilkes was there this lake
overfowed, and in one night dis
charged about fifteen million cubic
feet OF lava. A violent eruption oc-.
CURED in Mauna Loa in 1866, which
lasted thirteen months, and sent its
streams of lava over an area estimated
.as three hundred square miles. An
other violent eruption began in 1859,
when new craters were opened in the
side of the. mountain. Volcanoes are
indeed so frequent and xiolent
the Sandwich Islands as
to render much of the surface insus-
eoeptible of culture. -
The Newark Adcertiser, speaking
sof the terrific earthquake at Mauha
Lroa, says: - 'g.. ,7Ill ri
t'Terrible as this earthquake was,
ct is by no means the most violent or
onost disastrous of which we have re-
cord. The region of the Mediterra-
mean has repeatedly been devastated
IN the same manner. Passing by the
Historical earthquake which destroyed
Herculaneum and Pompeii in the
year 60, which was sixteen years be-
&ore those cities were buried in the
ashes from Vesuvius, the great earth,
quake of Lisbon in 1755 far exceeds
1t in terror. In the short space Of
six minutes 0,000 persons perished.
The seq in the harbor retired, leav-
ing the bar dry, and then rushed back
again i'll wave moro than fifty feet
an height. This phenomenon of a
tidal wave is the usual accompafi-
ment of such disturbances on the
shore of the sea, and the disasters at
st. Thomas are still fresh. in the
fnemory of our readers
NEARLY all the earthquakes seem
to be associated with volcanic action,
although no portion of the globe is
entirely free from these oscillations,
more or less active. How thin crust
Te live upon, how mere an egg-shell
is this too solid EARTH, may be
Judged from the vast extent of sur
face sometimes affected. The Lisbon
shock was felt over one-eighth of the
surface Of the world; and this of
Mauna Loa was distinctly felt at San
Francisco on the 9th of March. AS
an actual fact, geologists assert that,
the relative proportion of the solidi-
fled surface to the molten contents of
this torpedo on which we exist is
shout that Of the shell of an egg to
its contents. Changes in the contour
of islands, and even of continents,
which seem to us gigantic, shrink in
their proportions when we think of
Che film on which we tread and of the
hell of fire that RACES beneath. In
the earthquakes of Chill, in 1922 the
country between the Andes and the
Pacific was permanently lifted from
four to seven feet higher above the
level of tho sea than it was before;
aud the area thus raised is estimated
70 equal fully 100000 square miles.
Lines of sea-beach, ut various eleva-
tlons, and successive precipitous
cliffs, mark the place when, in the
incandescent period, orr own region
was similarly nplifted. The Palisades
Of the Hudson, Bergen Heights, and
those strange islands of rock that
break the monotony Of the Newark
meadows, are all of volcanic origin.
''In other cases. the level of the