The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1888-12-22
TEE VOLCANO OF KILAUEA,
HAWAII.
All Ablaze Again! A River
of Fire +!
Madame Pele's Appearance.

Various accounts have been published
in our local and foreign papers during
the past year relative to the Volcano,
written, for the most part, by strangers,
who, having never visited it before, have
not been able to give such descriptions
as might enable those who saw it pre-
vious to the collapse of 1886, to form
correct idea of what it now is, Or whether
it is regaining its former activity, or is
likely to become less active or extinct,
as has been asserted. It was with the
view of satisfying myself on these and
other points, that l made trip there
recently, which is my fifteenth visit, the
first dating back to 1854.
It will be remembered that the fires of
Kilauea became extinct in March, 1886;
and this was the fifth or sixth time that
a similar occurrence has taken place
since 1910. The cause has, on each
occasion, undoubtedly been the opening
of subterranean channel by an eruption
at a lower level, serving to drain off its
molten lavas. On one occasion this ex-
tinction was for less than week, and as
far as known, it has never been for so
long a period as in the present instance,
when the fires could for months be only
found hidden in caves or assures, and
the return of the molten lava has been
very slow. The cause of its hardness is
the higher elevation of the craters at the
present time. The new lake, which has
been very appropriately named in honor
of Prof. Dana, of Yale College, who
visited the crater in 1887, about the time
it began to form, is located three or four
hundred feet above the active lake of
1850, and probably 600 feet above that of
1910. The entire floor of Kilauea is
gradually filling up with lava overf1owed
or upheaved, and if this process goes on
for the next fifty years as it has for the
past half century, Kilauea will be
mound or hill, the top of which will be
several hundred feet higher than the
present bluffs on its southern and
western sides.
The collapse of 1885 consisted not only
of complete extinction of the fires In
the crater, but also a disappearance of
the walls and cones surrounding and
forming Halemaumau and South Crater,
both of which, after the occurrence, pre-
scented huge basins several hundred feet
deep, in an almost level plateau, with no
fire or smoke or other evidence of activ-
ity-as completely dead as though they
had been extinct for many years. After
some weeks or months the subterranean
forces began to raise the collapsed craters
and force up their floors and surrounding
walls till now (nearly three years. the
appearance of the section OF Kilauea
occupied by the above two craters, very
much resembles that of 1886, prior to the
collapse. The cones that now encircle
these old craters have risen fully two
hundred feet higher than the western
wall of the large crater. What was
known as the South Lake or crater has
lately been filed up by its floor being
raised, and now, instead of being an
empty bowl, it is hill or series of hills
or cones. Halemaumau is somewhat
similar, though it still has bowl or de-
preston in it. Out of both localities
constantly rise dense clouds of smoke
and steam, and the whole appearance
indicates an outbreak somewhere soon,
though the only fire now seen in them is
in cracks and cones.