Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-06-15
0blo( Statesrl1alll, n.

The Earthquakes and Volcanic
Eruptions I'm the Sand wich Is-
lands. --
The latest newspapers from the Sand.
: wich Islands give additional items con.
cerning the great volcanic eruptions and
q earthquakes there. A letter from a resi-
dent of Hilo describes the scene at that
place as follows: -uo
"a ALI Hilo is in the greatest state of ex-
citement. All are panic stricken. Yes
terday, the I'd, at A :O5 P. NJ, we ex-
eperienced the most awful earthquake l
have ever known. Iwas coming from
the tannery to my store when l heard
loud rumbling noise like a number of
iron carriages drawn over a rough road
by wild horses. Soon the shock came,
and l never shall forget it. The horses
in the pasture took fright and ran and
snorted, the dogs howled, the cocks
crew. and hens cackled, the pigeons few
about as though some one had been
firing among them, The shock lasted a
good while, how long / cannot say, but
long enough to make me feel sea-sick.
and it was with difficulty that 1-could
stand. On reaching the store such a
sight and such "a smell greeted me- All
the bottles of pie fruits, preserves, sau-
ces, spices, ETC., were on the floor
broken. The chimney of the cook. house
was thrown down and the end of the
house burst in. All the stone walls
about the town were fat Reeds new
house was also injured, the foundation
is destroyed, some of the large pillar
supports of lava are split. The sea re-
ceded some $50 to 200 feet. No one
slept on Thursday night, the earth was
moving constantly like person breath
ing, and every once in while it would
give a sirug.. To-day it is shaking every
few minutes; my family are all out
doors, afraid to stay in the house. AS
write it is shaking, and occasionally /
wait for it to subside to resume my
writing. Stackpole arrived here to-day.
He says the sea came in and completely
demolished every house in the place. and
carried off some 167 bales of pulu, the
store and everything. He described the
shock as more terrible than we had it
here. 1s-ar5s ~. at.|s..,..
/" The great volcano of Kilauea, and the
changes it has undergone recently, are
thus described by another writer; =,
The ground around the crater, particr-
larly on the eastern and western sides, is
rent by a great. number of assures, one
near the Puma road more than twelve
feet wide, and very deep; others ofl-sser
size run parallel to and cross the Kau
road, so as to render travel on it very
dangerous. The look out house is de-
tached from the mainland by very deep
trevasse, and stands now on an isolated,
overbanging rock, which, at the next
severe concussion, must tnmble into the
pit below. Many small bushes, forming
SO many traps for the unwary. The
Volcano House, however, has not suffer
ed, nor is the ground surrounding it bro
ken in the least. From the walls of
'Kilauea large masses of rock have been
detached and thrown down. On the
west and northeast side, where the fire
had been most active before the great
earthquake of April 2, the falling masses
probably have been at once melted by
the lava, and carried off in is stream,
for the walls there remain perpendicular
as they We're before. but that this part
of the wall has lost portions of its'mass
is shown too evidently by the deep Gre
vices along the western edge just spoken
of, and the partial detachment in many
places of . large prisms of rock.
But - it is on the east and
northeast wall particularly that the
character of the crater has undergone
change. Along the descent on the
second ledge masses of rock, many more
than one hundred tuns in weight. OBJ
struct the path, and form abutlnents to
the stone pillars-small buttress hills,
similar to those observed in front of the
high basaltic wall in Koelau, Oahu. So
also in the deep crater itself, the eastern
wall has lost much of its perpendicular
dip, and has become shelving, in part
The crater itself was entirely devoid of
liquid lava; no incandescence any,
where; pitchy darkness lowered over
the abyss the first night. 1 say the
first night because, during the second
night Of our stay, between IL and
A. NJ, detonations were heard again,
and light .reappeared for short. time in
the South Lake; white vapors Of
steam issued from the floor in a hundred
places, but of those sitting sui
phurous and acid gases, form erly
so overpowering in the neighborhood
OF the lakes and ovens, only
the faintest trace was 2 per
ceived here and there. The heat was
nowhere so great that we could not keep
our footing for a minute or more, all
though in many places it would forbid
the touch of the bare hand. The great
South Lake is transformed into vast
pit, more than 500 feet deep, the solid
eastern wall projecting far over the hal
low below, whilethe remaining sides are
falling off with sharp inclination, and
consists of confused mass of lava
More than two, thirds of the old food ofl
Kilauea- has caved in, and sunk from
ll0 to 300 feet below the level of the
remaining floor. The depression EN-.
braces the whole western half and in
semi-circular line on considerable por-
tlon of the other halt. 1t is greatest in
the northern, and rather gradual and
gentle in its southern portion. En-
tering upon the depressed floor from
the southern lake, it was some time be
fore we became fully aware of its ex-
lstence. Itwas only on our return from
the northwest corner, where it is deem
est, that there presented itself through
the mist in which we were enveloped, a |
high wall of 800 feet of grotesque and